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Report of the Examination 

of the School System 

of East Orange, 

New Jersey 



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Issued by 

The Board of Education 
19 12 






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UNIVERSITY OF qf^EGON 



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Page 17, TalDle B and Page 18, Table C. 

Some of the amounts quoted Include 
purchases of lots, erection of "buildings, 
and payment of bonds. Other?: do not. 
Omitting these the figures foi' East Orange 
"become |6.12 and $55.87. 

Page 45, last line. Average. 

Change the first 92 to 94; the second 
92 to 98. 

The Stockton School was accidentally 
omitted from this table. 



Page 62, No. 9, second line. 
Change '♦mere" to "more*'. 



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UNIVERSITY OF OF^EGON 






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Report of the Examination 

of the School System 

of East Orange, 

New Jersey 



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Issued by 

^ Board of Education 
19 12 






New Haven, Conn., Dec. 12, 191 1. 

Mr. F. W. Wilson, 
Chairman of the Special Committee to Investigate the Educational 
Efficiency of the Schools. 
East Orange, N. J. 

Dear Sir: — 

I beg to submit herewith the report which in accordance with 
the action of your Board of Education at its meeting on June 12th, 
191 1, I have made, at your request. 

Very sincerely yours, 

E. C. MOORE. 

Exchange 
University oi OreE^n Library 
Oct. 9, 1033 



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To the Members of the Board of Education, 
East Orange, N. J. 

The Special Committee appointed, pursuant to a resolution 
adopted by the Board March 27 to examine and report on the effi- 
ciency of the present school system, report as follows: 

The Committee met immediately after their appointment and 
were of the unanimous opinion that such an examination as the 
Board desired could best be made by some disinterested person 
not in any way connected with the school system. A careful inquiry 
was made by members of the Committee as to the most available 
person to engage for the work required and an invitation was sent 
to Prof. Ernest Carroll Moore, Head of the Bureau of Education 
of Yale University, to make the examination. 

Our invitation was accepted by Prof. Moore, but at his sug- 
gestion the work was deferred till after the beginning of the Fall 
term. Prof. Moore came to East Orange about October first and 
since that time has been occupied in making a thorough exam- 
ination of all the schools and compiling the results. 

The Committee requested Prof. Moore to make the examina- 
tion in any manner he deemed best and to prepare his report without 
consultation with the committee. These instructions have been 
complied with and the report is herewith submitted for your 
acceptance. 

Respectfully, 

Frank W. Wilson, Chairman 
Frederick W. Garvin, President 
Robert M. Crater 
Charles P. Titus 
Vernon L. Davey, Superintendent 
Special Committee on Investigation. 



Foreword 

The educational efficiency of a system of schools is not easily 
determined. There is no single test by which it may be known. 
Like John Stuart Mills' well-known description of causation, a school 
system is the sum total of the conditions which produce it. — The 
attitude of the community toward education in the past, its attitude 
in the present, the assistance plus or minus which its homes render, 
its economic status, occupations and government, the character and 
efficiency of its school boards both now and in time past; the devo- 
tion and training and skill of the superintendent of schools, the 
principals, and teachers ; the type of school system which they are 
developing, the course of study followed, the text books used, school 
buildings, playgrounds, health, discipline, etc., etc., all enter as con- 
tributing factors which in combination for good or ill determine 
the effectiveness of the work of educating the young. It is impos- 
sible to do more than select a few of these conditions for examina- 
tion. I have chosen from among them all : I, An Historical Sketch 
of the School System ; II, The Community and the Efficiency of 
the Schools; III, The Board of Education and the Efficiency of 
the Schools ; IV, Cost as Related to the Efficiency of the Schools ; 
V, A General Survey of the Schools and Their Efficiency ; VI, 
The Teachers and Their Work ; VII, A New Course of Study ; VIII, 
The High School ; IX, Summary of Recommendations. 

The improvements which we have to suggest are not inconsider- 
able in importance. They are supported not alone by theory, but 
also as we believe, by the best educational practice of the day. 

The outline history of the school system has been supplied by 
the Superintendent and the Principal of the High School. Par- 
ticular attention has been given to the actual work of the schools. 
All of the class-rooms in both elementary and high schools have been 
visited, some of them more than once, and for a considerable time 
in many instances. We have talked with most of the teachers and 
supervising officers about their work and about the conditions under 
which they labor. Through the kind assistance of the Superinten- 
dent's office we have examined all the pupils in the sth, 6th, 7th, and 
8th grades in the four fundamental processes of arithmetic, in Eng- 
lish composition, in writing and in spelling. In addition some of the 
citizens of the town have been consulted concerning the work of 
the schools, school records have been examined, statistics have been 
gathered, and the course of study and the rules of the Board of Edu- 
cation have been studied. Most careful attention has been given to 
the work of the High School, not because it is believed to be more 
important than the elementary schools — it is not — but because what- 
ever shortcomings there may be in the system are apt to appear very 
clearly under the strain of the transition which pupils must undergo 
in passing from the elementary grades into the care of secondary 



teachers. Comparisons have been made with other school systems, 
wherever it was felt that such comparisons would be of value. 
They have not always been made with other cities of the same size ; 
indeed, it is not necessary that they should be. What is wanted, is 
evidence concerning the best school practice in the land. That 
does not vary materially with the size of the community, but is much 
the same for all. Indeed, whatever advantages there are should 
accrue to the small city, rather than to the large one, for changes 
in it do not involve sums of money so large as to terrify even the 
progressive men who champion them. Moreover, it is a more man- 
ageable unit in school organization, dissatisfaction quickly makes 
itself known, mistakes can easily be remedied, and improvements 
are not difficult to introduce. School systems that minister to great 
masses of people are much more unwieldy. The schools of smaller 
cities must not. therefore, be content to take a place behind the 
larger cities but ought, themselves, to lead the very van of educa- 
tional progress. 

It is a pleasure to acknowledge the thoroughly courteous treat- 
ment I have received from everyone with whom I have had to do 
during the course of this examination. I take this opportunity to 
thank the Superintendent, and every teacher and principal in 
your department for the kindly way in which I was received and 
helped. On my part I have tried to make what must have been a 
trying ordeal for many whom I visited as light an infliction as I 
could. There is always grave danger that such an exainination as 
I have been making may disturb and disorganize instruction unduly. 
1 have tried to keep it from producing any such result in this case. 

I have tried to make a constructive program for the develop- 
ment of a public school system such as I believe a prosperous and 
progressive community like East Orange should have. Much has 
been done already, but much still remains to be done to bring the 
schools to the highest pitch of efficiency. What is most needed is 
thorough co-operation of all concerned. I urge particularly the 
paramount necessity for the greatest frankness in all their relations 
on the part of the Board of Education, the Superintendent, the prin- 
cipals, the teachers and the patrons of the schools. The policy of 
the Board of Education must be known. The Superintendent should 
state his convictions upon all educational matters, and his reasons 
for them quite fearlessly. Teachers and principals must bring 
their difficulties to the Superintendent without any feeling of con- 
straint. They are all parts, one of another, in the greatest of un- 
dertakings. I realize quite clearly that I have not dwelt upon the 
very great merits of what has been wrought patiently and persist- 
ently and conscientiously through the years, and I freely testify that 
what has already been done is of much greater moment than all 
that I have suggested for attention in the future. But the goodly 
educational structure which has been reared should be repaired 
here and there, and must be enlarged to meet new conditions and to 
house the growing conception of education. 



I. — Historical Sketch 

The schools of East Orange were legally consolidated in 1889 
and a Township Board of Education was elected. During the next 
year, however, the four schools of the township were allowed to 
continue as formerly in nearly all respects, and only a slight eflfort 
was made to establish uniformity or to bring them into an or- 
ganic system. At the end of the first year a superintendent — the 
present incumbent — was appointed and a systematic effort was 
begun, looking to the complete unification of the schools into a well- 
graded system. 

At the time of consolidation there were four school buildings 
as follows : 

Seating Estimated Value 

Ashland 672 $55,ooo 

Eastern • • • 504 50,000 

Franklin 336 38,000 

Elmwood • 168 17,000 

The list, including lots, buildings and equipment — all at present 
value, with full allowances for depreciation — now stands : 

Seating Value 

*High 800 $428,041 00 

Ashland 714 156,13707 

Eastern 672 ii5>35i 55 

Franklin • 714 94,732 58 

Elmwood 588 92,365 09 

Columbian 504 83,375 85 

Nassau 652 86,795 68 

Stockton 588 86,569 03 

Lincoln • 462 1 17,869 04 

Washington 462 107,000 00 

Two portable school-houses 82 2,31042 

Playgrounds • 23,898 07 

$1,394,445 38 

*This includes the Board Rooms and equipment of same. 

In 1890 it was decided to raise the standard of promotion from 
the schools and establish a well-equipped High School. Three pu- 
pils were graduated at the end of the first year. 

The high school building erected in 1890 was designed to 
accommodate five hundred pupils. The field of high school work 
has expanded greatly since that time, and the building could not 
properly accommodate more than three hundred and fifty or four 
hundred pupils, if proper laboratories were provided. This building 
was comfortably filled ten years after its erection. Since that time 
conditions became continually less favorable to satisfactory work 
as the number of pupils increased. 

A new High School building was completed and taken posses- 
sion of in September of the present year. The total number of pu- 
pils that can now be accommodated is about eight hundred, but the 
finishing of some uncompleted space will provide satisfactory ac- 
commodation for from ten to twelve hundred. 



8 



table 



The growth of the High School is shown by the following 



Year 
890- '9 1 . 
891 -'92. 
892-'93. 
893-'94. 
894-'95- 
895-'96. 
896-'97. 
897-'98. 
898-'99- 
899-'oo. 
900- '01. 



Enrolled 

159 
154 
182 

237 
205 
230 
330 
374 
449 
486 
470 



Graduates 

Full 4-year 

Courses 



10 
23 
14 
23 
S3 
20 

32 
64 
59 



Year 

I90I-'02. 

i902-'o3 . 
i903-'o4. 
i904-'05. 
i905-'o6. 
i9o6-'o7. 
i907-'o8. 
i9o8-'og. 
i909-'io. 
i9io-'ii- 



Graduates 
Full 4-year 
Enrolled Courses 
480 



464 

479 
470 
482 

554 
601 
627 
712 
716 



51 
33 
55 
47 
45 
72 
84 
64 
79 
87 



In 1890 the teaching force numbered forty-nine, with a salary 
roll of about $37,000. There are now one hundred and eighty-seven 
teachers on the list, and the salary list, exclusive of clerks, janitors 
and others not engaged in teaching or supervising, is $184,300. 

The old Ashland School was sold and replaced by a new build- 
ing. The Eastern, Franklin and Elmwood have been more than 
doubled in size and have been modernized in all essentials. 

Every building is equipped with apparatus for forced ventilation 
and with sanitary systems connected with the sewers. In each build- 
ing there is an assembly hall seated with opera chairs, and a fully 
equipped manual training room. Every pupil has a separate desk 
and a separate compartment or locker in the cloak room. 

The yearly growth of the system, as shown by the total enroll- 
ment and the average belonging, is as follows : 



1889-90 
i89o-'9i 
i8gi-'92 
i892-'93 

i893-'94 
i894-'95 
i895-'96 
i8g6-'97 
i897-'98 
i898-'99 
l899-'oo 
I900-'oi 

I90I-'02 

i902-'o3 
i903-'o4 
i904-'05 
i905-'o6 
1 906- '07 
i907-'o8 
i9o8-'o9 
i909-'io 
1910-'! I 



Total 
Enrollment 
2117 
2173 
2350 
2482 
2645 
2732 
2929 
3192 
3280 
3499 
3744 
4051 
4214 

4375 
4414 
4623 
4851 
4999 
5340 
5649 
5870 
5903 



Average 
Belonging 

1495 
1706 

1791 
1866 
2097 
2202 
2358 
2545 
2707 
2812 

3079 
3284 

3369 
3539 
3631 
3765 
3896 
4145 
4372 
4762 
5069 
5108 



The first ofifice of the Board of Education and District Clerk 
was a small back room in a building facing the Brick Church sta- 



tion. At the end of a year a small, unoccupied grocery store on 
Main street was secured and its one room served for nearly two 
years as Board Room, store room, and offices for District Clerk 
and Superintendent. In December, 1891, the High School was 
opened and two small rooms were reserved for the use of the Board 
and its officers. These offices were needed as recitation rooms, and 
in September, 1900, the Board moved into offices in the City Hall. 
In October of 191 1 they went into a fine suite of offices in the old 
High School building. 

II. — The Community and the Efficiency of the Schools 

East Orange is a city of 34,371 people. It has an assessed prop- 
erty valuation of $49,982,929. Its tax rate for the year is 1.70 per 
hundred. It is a compact city with a total area of but four square 
miles. It is, too, a remarkably healthy community, for in 1909, the 
last year for which figures are available, its death rate was but 9.5, 
the lowest reported by the United States government in the vital 
statistics for that year. Its population is almost entirely American, 
and of a well-to-do class ; extremes of poverty and wealth are hardly 
to be found. There is a relatively small colored population, but it 
too is of a prosperous, and fairly well-to-do sort. There are only a 
very few foreigners who have come to our country so recently that 
the schools must perform for them the double duty of teaching their 
children the English language as well as the fundamental arts which 
constitute an elementary education. In this respect the educational 
task of this community is much simpler than in many of its neigh- 
bors, where great numbers of children of other nations must be 
taught a new language and many of the ideas which lie behind Am- 
erican school instruction, as well as the specific subjects of the com- 
mon school course which both those who know the language and 
those who do not must learn. In these respects East Orange is 
singularly fortunate. 

But certain other features of its life do not make for educa- 
tional efficiency in the same measure. The city is a suburb of New 
York. The major part of its citizens are business men, professional 
men, clerks, salesmen, etc., etc., in the metropolis. The town lacks 
unity ; it is a fragment of a larger whole ; is not complete in itself. 
The interests of its people are elsewhere; their social life is else- 
where. People come and go. Many make only a convenience of 
the place. Houses are rented, but homes are not established. What 
takes place in East Orange is of much less concern than what goes 
on in New York. There is bound to be an aloofness from local 
issues. People do not know each other, and do not work closely 
together for common ends. 

Such a condition of things aflFects the schools vitally. East 
Orange is not a manufacturing city, nor is it a commercial town. 
It is a residence suburb, beautiful, healthy, rich. Its citizens leave 
their homes every morning to go elsewhere to their work. Its chil- 
dren leave their homes every morning to go to school with the no- 
tion deeply fixed in their minds (for it is inevitable that it should 



10 

be so), that the really momentous concerns of life are to be found 
elsewhere. Their minds are divided just as their parents' minds are. 
New York plays too large a part in their thoughts. This is the pen- 
alty which the suburban dweller must pay for his immunity from 
the confusion of city life. It is a very real penalty. The children 
in the schools are not less intelligent than they are elsewhere ; they 
are more so, for they come of good American stock ; but they are less 
interested in school work, and know less about the necessity which 
men are under to work for a living upon farms and in factories and 
shops, than if they were brought up in a community where all the 
features of a vigorous economic life were playing everywhere about 
them. For the most part they do not come to school with any very 
profound sense of the great importance of these things, and in the 
absence of these major interests of mankind from the foreground of 
their consciousness, the things which do go on under their eyes 
assume a disproportionate importance. 

Complaint was made to me repeatedly by teachers that going 
to school and doing one's work well there was a thing of less im- 
portance in the eyes of many of their children than leaving school 
to attend children's parties held during school hours, or even staying 
at home in order to be fresh for social events to be held in the even- 
ing. I have no means of knowing how commonly the most import- 
ant work of children is made to wait upon their social engagements, 
but mention was made of this fact so commonly that I am forced 
to regard it as a serious hindrance to the efficiency of the schools 
and a condition which the parents of the community should change 
if the best interests of the children are conserved. 

From the beginning East Orange has taken pride in her schools 
and with money her people have supported them generously. But 
there is another kind of support which they seem to have withheld 
from them. They have built good school buildings, and paid good 
salaries to teachers and supervising oflficers ; but after buildings were 
built and teachers put in charge, they seem to have thought no more 
about the schools than if they were factories or department stores. 
The education of the young is a family concern as well as a state 
interest. It used to be regarded as a religious duty performed by 
the parents themselves. When this became impossible, teachers were 
brought into the household to instruct the children under the eyes 
of their parents, and when at length the children were sent outside 
the home to public schools the parents followed them to support and 
encourage them in getting an education, and to lend such approval 
and assistance to their teachers as the weighty task of nurturing 
the little ones seemed to require ; and this good old custom of con- 
cerning themselves deeply over all that happens to their children, 
or regarding it as a duty as well as a pleasure to be often present at 
their lessons, to know well the conditions that surround them, and 
to lend all the support and encouragement which their presence 
can supply, still moves the mothers, and the fathers too, of many 
communities to visit the schools which their children attend at fre- 
quent intervals and for a sufficient time to get acquainted with their 
teachers, their lessons, and their progress in their work. I have 



II 



never before been in schools where parents were so rarely found as 
\isitors. The reply which teachers repeatedly made to my ques- 
tions, "Do the parents of your children visit your classroom? Do 
you succeed in getting their support and' assistance in the work you 
are trying to do for their children ?" was "When a pupil takes home 
a poor report at the end of the month, his mother or father usually 
comes to see about it. They do not visit us much otherwise." But 
this is not satisfactory and the schools cannot do their best work 
without a heartier cooperation on the part of the homes than this. 
It is too much like thrusting the children to one side to make the 
most of the conditions they find there. 

Again East Orange does not care sufficiently for its teachers. It 
pays them fairly good salaries, but beyond that its people concern 
themselves but slightly as to their welfare. The homes of most of 
them are in other places ; living is high, and proper accommodations 
are not easily found. The teacher who comes to the community a 
stranger is too apt to remain a stranger. Few go out of their way 
to meet her and seldom are opportunities provided for making ac- 
quaintances beyond the circle of her own fellow workers. Only 
those who have been so situated as to feel the need for acquaint- 
ances, friends and companions, can know what a hardship it is to 
be thus shut off from them and thrust back completely upon one's 
self. Teaching is a work of spiritual radiation; only a contented, 
happy, and measurably successful person can generate the inex- 
haustible enthusiasm for knowledge which it requires. Surely the 
work which the teachers do is of sufficient importance to the com- 
munity to cause it to be solicitous for their well-being, and to pro- 
vide every opportunity for its teachers to live as full and rich a 
social life as_ is open to any class of its people. I am laying stress 
upon this point, for every superintendent of schools knows that the 
efficiency of the school system rises and falls with the condition of 
the teachers who perform its work of instruction. The community 
which allows their lot to be less tolerable than it should be will suf- 
fer automatically for its omission to care duly for the most import- 
ant of its pubHc servants. 

Another difficulty is that the community has no industries of 
its own. Shall its schools, then (particularly its High School), train 
Its young people for business, and for the professions by fitting 
them to go on to college, or shall it provide them as varied opportuni- 
ties fortraining in several other lines as the well equipped high schools 
of industrial communities are offering? This question is not easily 
answered. But if the community trains its children to follow their 
fathers' occupations only, it will undoubtedly fail to provide the 
very opportunities which many of its young people need. Occupa- 
tions are not hereditary, and no city lives so completely to itself 
that It can afford to provide a less complete opportunity for the 
training of its young people than its neighbors do. Even though 
the economic interests of their parents are along special lines, the 
education which is offered their children must be along many lines. 
In this connection I recommend that a systematic effort be 
made to secure a larger and more active cooperation on the part of 



12 

parents who send their children to the public schools. This can be 
done in several ways : ( i ) By holding public meetings for the dis- 
cussion of educational matters; (2) by organizing school patron's 
clubs, which meet periodically in the schools for the purpose of get- 
ting acquainted and becoming informed about school work; (3) by 
each school preparing an annual exhibit of its work and inviting all 
parents and citizens of its territory to an "at home" in the school 
house. This last method is particularly effective, for the children 
love to have their parents see their work, and seldom fail to secure 
their attendance at this school fete. Something of this sort is being 
done already, but it is not a general practice of all teachers and 
all schools as it should be. Suggestions as to the opportunities for 
training which the High School should offer will be made in a later 
section. 



III. — The Board of Education and the Efficiency of the Schools 

Your Board has been perhaps a bit more anxious to get work 
done, than to get it done through the agencies which it, itself, main- 
tains for the doing of it. This may have been necessary to expedite 
pressing business, but in one respect it is unfortunate, for it has 
worked a degree of demoralization in the teaching staff of the 
schools. Now, inasmuch as a school system is a very delicate and 
sensitive organization, exceedingly hard to keep in adjustment and 
very easily thrown out of balance, the proper systematization of 
school work is an exceedingly important element in determining its 
efficiency. 

It is a principle of scientific management, that in every properly 
directed undertaking there shall be a planning department whose 
duty it shall be to know about all that is being undertaken and done, 
and to provide plans in accordance with the laws of science. In- 
stead of the happy-go-lucky method of each man doing what he 
feels like doing and in the way which seems to him best, scientific 
management substitutes a thorough organization of work with min- 
ute subdivisions of labor. 

First, there must be some one place where the system comes 
to a head, some one person must know about all that is being under- 
taken and all that is being done. This one person, who has the 
general oversight of the entire undertaking must arrange the work 
of each of his assistants so that the different parts of the under- 
taking will fit together as nearly perfectly as they can be made to, 
so that preparatory stages will really prepare and contributory 
agencies will genuinely contribute. The principles of scientific man- 
agement apply to public school work just as truly as they apply to 
any other form of cooperative effort. But who is the one person, 
or which is the one department that must know about all that is 
being attempted and done? It cannot be the Board of Education 
for the Board of Education has not time to keep track of all that is 
going on; it is not "on the job" every minute. Neither can any one 
of its members do this for no one member has any legal authority 



^3 

to do anything save as the corporation in charge — the Board of Edu- 
cation — sitting as a board in accordance with the estabHshed legal 
procedure, specifically gives him such authority. Again, if the 
work of the school department is to be thoroughly planned from be- 
ginning to end, so that in all its parts, in its buildings, in its financial 
arrangements, in its system of supplies, in its selection of janitors, 
physicians, teachers and principals, in its course of study and 
methods of instruction, etc., it shall be the most effective agency 
possible for the instruction of the young, there must be a planning 
department whose duty it shall be to provide plans for the proper 
functioning of all the differents parts of the system. This planning 
department must be one department in which all the plans will be 
made to fit together, and it must be a department of experts. Can 
the Board of Education do this work? It is a board of laymen 
who sometimes have great difficulty in keeping from attempting to 
perform the work of educational experts, though they should have 
no more difficulty than a bookkeeper in recognizing the expertness 
of a carpenter, a carpenter that of a bookkeeper, or a client the ad- 
vantage of the special training of his lawyer, or a patient that of his 
physician. 

The one person who is "on the job" all the time, who can know 
about all that is being undertaken and whether it is being done in 
such a way as to serve the one ultimate interest of the undertaking 
and can make plans for the work of all his assistants, and watch 
their work from day to day, to see that it is being performed prop- 
erly, is the Superintendent of Schools. The Board of Education 
meets at regular intervals, either as a whole or in committees to 
listen to reports of what has been done, to formulate rules for the 
conduct of the business, to pass upon plans that may be presented 
to it, ratify agreements, authorize expenditures, etc., etc. It per- 
forms the same function for the citizens that the board of directors 
of a corporation performs for the stockholders of the company. 
Just as the actual management of the corporation is, and must be, 
entrusted to a staff of expert assistants whose work is guided and 
directed by the executive officer, who reports to the directors and 
transmits their directions to his assistants, so must the work of a 
board of education be conducted, if the principles of scientific man- 
agement are to be followed and the highest efficiency of the school 
system is to be secured. 

Suggested Changes in the Rules 

I do not find that these principles have been sufficiently con- 
sidered by your Board either in making its rules for conducting the 
business of the schools, nor in its day by day relations with them. 
The duties of your executive officer, the superintendent of schools, 
are not sufficiently defined, and the Rules do not give that office the 
functions it should have if the greatest educational efficiency is to 
be secured. Rule 23 declares that "the superintendent of schools 
shall act under the advice and direction of the Board and its sev- 
eral committees." Inasmuch as the acts of the committees must be 



14 

authorized or ratified by the Board and the committees are ap- 
pointed merely to expedite business, in order that the committees 
may not assume a larger authority than they possess, it would be 
better if the superintendent were directed by the Board itself. He 
should be required to attend all open meetings of the Board and its 
committees. 

Your Committee on Teachers is authorized to recommend the 
employment of teachers, "after consultation with the superinten- 
dent." This is not enough ; all nominations of teachers and prin- 
cipals should be made by the superintendent and the rules of the 
Board of Education should specify that no teacher may be elected 
who has not been nominated by the superintendent. 

Rule 13 declares that the course of study committee "shall 
have charge of the course of study in all schools in conjunction with 
the superintendent, and recommend such alterations and revisions 
thereof as it may deem advisable, and recommend such text-books 
and school accessories as it m^ay believe best adapted to the wants 
of the different schools." Here again the superintendent should 
recommend and approve all textbooks, school accessories and all 
changes in the course of study before the Board should allow itself 
to consider the adoption of them. That the public business may 
be sufficiently safeguarded the Board of Education must observe 
a system of checks and balances in its own procedure. 

Rule 14 declares that the committee on schools "shall have jur- 
isdiction over all matters involving school discipline and shall have 
general oversight over all school matters except such as are referred 
to other committees." Such jurisdiction over all matters of school 
discipline is meant, I take it, to be appellate and not original, but 
I think the rules should recognize the fact that the Superintendent 
handles all cases of school discipline until appeal is taken over his 
ruling to the committee of the Board. 

Rule 15 specifies the duties of the Building Committee, but does 
not require the written approval of the Superintendent of schools 
upon all plans for buildings or additions to buildings before con- 
tracts for the same shall be let ; yet the school superintendent is a 
much safer authority upon the proper arrangement of a school house 
than an architect, for he has learned what a schoolhouse ought to 
be by using it, whereas the architect knows it only by building it 
or visiting it. The relation of the Superintendent to the High 
School should, I think, be specified by the rules of the Board; this 
matter has been a fertile source of difficulty in the past, and the 
bad effects of the lack of a proper adjustment are still hindering 
the work which the High School is trying to do. 

Need for Cooperation in School Business 

I have not found that degree of cooperation between the sev- 
eral factors concerned with the administration of the schools which 
should obtain among them. The Board of Education has some- 
times acted in very serious matters without, as I think, sufficient 
consultation with the members of its staflF, who must carry out its 



15 

directions without sufficient preparation to do so successfully. The 
matter of self-government in the study rooms of the High School 
is a case in point. I do not think that the High School authorities 
can he blamed for finding it exceedingly difficult to save the day 
in this matter, for though the plan is a good one and must if possi- 
ble be made to succeed, as it will be, yet, its accomplishment was 
made unnecessarily difficult by the haste and lack of preliminary 
preparation which marked its initiation. 

Recommendations 

I recommend, therefore, a more thorough systematization of 
the work of the Board of Education, the Superintendent of 
Schools, the Principal of the High School, and the other 
officers of the system, and such changes in the rules 
of the Board of Education as may be necessary to specify the func- 
tions and responsibility of each somewhat in detail, in order that 
there may no longer be any confusion of offices or misunderstanding 
of responsibility. No other recommendation which I can make 
will do so much to bring peace and harmony into school work nor 
to promote the energetic efforts of teachers who feel troubled and 
insecure because they do not know what the future policy of the 
Board of Education may be. 

IV. — Cost as Related to the Efficiency of the Schools 
A Comparison of the Cost of Public Education in Montclair and East Orange 

The State Superintendent of New Jersey has defined the "Cost 
of Education" in his report for 1909 as follows: This term ("cur- 
rent expenses") as defined in section 95 of the school law includes 
principals', teachers', janitors' and medical inspectors' salaries 
(though not specified in the law, it necessarily includes also salaries 
of superintendents and supervising officials) ; fuel, textbooks, school 
supplies, flags ; transportation of pupils ; tuition of pupils attending 
schools in other districts with the consent of the Board of Educa- 
tion ; school libraries ; compensation of the district clerk, of the 
custodian of school moneys and of truant officers ; truant schools, 
insurance, and the incidental expenses of the schools. 

A very careful investigation of the cost of the public schools 
of Montclair and East Orange made by Mr. Howard Greenman 
whose report bears date of March T7th, 191 1, supplies the following 
summary of school expenses for the year ending June 3d, 1909. 



i6 



Table A 



Current Expenses 


Amount Expended 


Per Capita Cost Based Upon 
Av. Enrollment. Av. Attendance 


(Excluding Manual 
Training) 


Montclair 


E. Orange 


3098 

M. 


4725 
E. 0. 


2839 
M. 


4S20 
E. 0. 


Teachers' salaries . . . 
Fuel and Janitors' 

salaries 

Textbooks and 

apparatus 

Other school 

purposes 


$119,043.26 
14,311-87 
11,485 .00 
16,374-45 


$138,217.56 

22,346. 26 

0,870.32 

4,964.49 


S38.43 
4.62 
3-71 
S.28 


$29. 25 
4-73 
2.09 
I. OS 


$41-93 
5-04 
4.04 

S-78 


$30.58 
405 
2.18 
1 . 10 



Total current expen- 










1 




ses or C s t f 














Education 


$161,214. 58 


$175,394-63 


$52.04 


$37-12 


$56.79 


$38.81 



Other items must be added which change these totals some- 
what, — as the cost of manual training which was $8.32 for each pu- 
pil taking it for Montclair and $4.14 per pupil taking it in East 
Orange. Mr. Greenman estimates the total excess per capita cost 
on daily attendance in Montclair over East Orange as $24.45, ^"<i 
explains this marked difference in cost between the two systems in 
the following way : 

"In both places there seems to be a custom to increase salaries 
year by year, and the average of length of service of teachers in 
Montclair exceeds that of East Orange by about 12^ per cent. 
Hence a correspondingly higher average salary might reasonably 
be expected. A more important item, however, is the fewer average 
number of pupils assigned to one teacher in Montclair. Indeed this 
is the most marked point of difference and materially contributes to 
the increased per capita cost in Montclair both in teachers' salaries 
and in the expenses incidental to the resulting factors of larger 
quarters per pupil. 

"Another significant feature is this : You will observe that the 
average cost of educational salaries increases with the age of the 
pupils, being lowest in the kindergarten and highest in the high 
school. The percentage of total scholars attending the lower 
grades in East Orange exceeds Montclair's percentage, but as the 
grades advance, the proportion is reversed, and in the high school 
Montclair's percentage exceeds that of East Orange. This variation 
in distribution of pupils in the various grades will have the effect 
of increasing the per capita cost to Montclair, for evening schools, 
summer gardens, open air schools, school nurse, truant officer, high 
school gymnasium, supervisor of manual training and maintenance 
of three manual training buildings goes to increase the cost of 
Montclair, for the reason that no corresponding expense is incurred 
in East Orange as they do not maintain similar branches or 
positions." 

Taking the estimated excess per capita cost of Montclair over 
East Orange as approximately $24.45, the distribution of that ex- 
cess over various items would be about as follows: 



17 

1. Fewer average number of pupils assigned to each 
teacher in Montclair, approximately $9 80 

2. Expense incurred in Montclair for departments, 
etc., that do not exist in East Orange, summer gardens, 
open air school, school nurse, truant officer, high school 
gymnasium, supervisor of manual training and mainte- 
nance of manual training buildings, etc., approximately. . 4 55 

3. Larger quarters per pupil in Montclair, involving 

larger expense for janitors, heating, etc., approximately. . 2 80 

4. Additional expense incurred in Montclair for 
manual training, where a greater number of subjects are 
taught and more time is devoted thereto, approximately. . 2 00 

5. Additional expense incurred in Montclair for ad- 
ministrative salaries, approximately i 40 

6. Larger percentage of attendance in Montclair in 

the higher grades oc 

7. Higher average salaries paid to teachers in 
Montclair, approximately gc 

8. Additional expense incurred in Montclair for sup- 
plies, approximately ge 

9. Remaining- or miscellaneous expenses coming un- 
der fifty-one headings and amounting in the aggregate, 

to approximately i ac 

Estimated total excess per capita in Montclair, based 

on average attendance $24 45 

A Comparison of School Expenditures Here and Elsewhere 

General comparisons of the cost of school systems are of 
necessity quite inexact because the same things are not compared, 
yet they have a suggestive value, though not a final one. The fig- 
ures of the census of 1910 supply the following: 

Table B 

Total expenses of schools per capita of population. 

City. Population. Cost, per capita. 

East Orange, N. J 34,371 eg 04 

Newton, Mass 39,8o6 8 39 

Hamilton Ohio 35,279 549 

Elmira, N. Y 37,176 380 

Berkeley, Calif 40,434 9 90 

Los Angeles, Calif 319,198 719 

Detroit, Mich 465,766 452 

Chicago, 111 2,185,283 5 87 

Boston Mass 670,585 6 43 

Newark, N. J 347,469 7 80 

It will be noted that the cities of Newton, Berkeley and East 
Orange are similar in respect to size and character as each is a 
suburban city with a population of superior grade, considerable 
wealth and anxious to maintain good schools. 



i8 

The per capita of the total expenses of schools, based on en- 
rollment were as follows : 

Table C 

School Per Capita 

City enrollment expense 

East Orange, N. J 5,870 $47 28 

Newton, Mass 7,212 46 32 

Hamilton, Ohio 4,686 41 35 

Elmira, N. Y 5,138 2,y 54 

Berkeley, Calif 6,753 59 29 

Los Angeles, Calif 52,058 44 09 

Detroit, Mich 56,927 37 19 

Chicago, 111 334,564 38 34 

Boston, Mass 131,300 3279 

Newark, N. J 57,742 46 94 

The number of pupils per teacher on the basis of the total num- 
ber of pupils enrolled for the year: 

Table D 

City. Enrollment 

East Orange, N. J 5,870 

Newton, Mass 7,212 

Hamilton, Ohio 4,686 

Elmira, N. Y 5,138 

Berkeley, Calif 6,753 

Los Angeles, Calif 52,058 

Detroit, Mich 56,927 

Chicago, 111 334,564 

Boston, Mass 131,300 

Newark, N. J 57,742 

While these figures are unsatisfactory in that the tables from 
which they are constructed are perhaps not exact, and they are 
averages based on total enrollment, the most variable of all items 
in school reports, yet as the total enrollment is used throughout, the 
trend of averages which is shown has value. It will be seen that 
the state of affairs in East Orange compares very favorably with 
the other cities in each of the tables. The comparison of school 
expenditures with Montclair is greatly in favor of East Orange, and 
this comparison with the expenditures of other cities shows that 
she is not spending a smaller amount of money than they are on 
the education of her children. But while it would not seem to be 
desirable to expend as much money for instruction as Montclair 
is spending, the comparison with that city is valuable in that it does 
call attention to certain items on which East Orange must expend 
more money if the best results are to be obtained. 

No evening schools are maintained, and the population is of 
such a character that perhaps few would attend if one were opened. 
School gardens are a necessity if the best kind of nature study work 
is to be done, and they should be provided The need for an open 
air school should be decided by the Superintendent and the school 



Pupils per 
Teachers teacher 


166 




35 


zn 




19 


151 
168 
189 




31 
30 
35 


1,307 
1,500 

6,383 
2,848 




39 
38 

52 

46 


1,327 




43 



19 

physicians. A school nurse is hardly necessary there. A truant 
officer is already employed. Very satisfactory gymnastic work is 
being given in the High School, though a gymnasium must be fitted 
up there. A supervisor of manual training is now at work. Man- 
ual training shops are to be found in each elementary school. The 
average number of pupils per teacher on the basis of the average 
attendance, according to Mr. Greenman's figures, was 27.8; that is 
not too high a number for eft'ective work. The classification sheets 
which I have collected do show overcrowding in some rooms, but 
this condition wall be relieved as soon as teachers can be found. 
East Orange had a population of 21,506 in 1900 and 34,371 in 1910, 
which in part accounts for the larger percentage of primary school 
children there. 

To me by far the most serious feature of this comparison is 
the fact that the average period of service of teachers in East 
Orange is 12^% less than in Montclair, being 6.1 years there, and 
5.4 years in East Orange. Superintendents and principals are all 
agreed that the schools suffer because teachers cannot be retained. 
This is a condition which besets every suburban school department. 
If it is wise in consulting for its educational welfare it will not per- 
mit itself to be made into a training school or a recruiting station 
for the larger school systems which are its neighbors. It has an 
initial advantage in being a more pleasant place in which to teach 
than they are. With this beginning it could easily make its salaries 
so satisfactory that teachers would rarely or never go elsewhere to 
teach. Good teaching is worth just as much to East Orange as it 
is to Montclair, Newark or New York. The cost of living, too, is 
high. The city should not allow its schools to be handicapped in 
any measure by lower salaries than its neighbors pay. 

V. — A General Survey of the Schools and Their Eificiency 
School Buildings 

East Orange has eight elementary schools and one high school. 
All are housed in commodious and substantial buildings, and some 
in the beautiful and well-arranged new buildings of the most ap- 
proved type which East Orange has been erecting in recent years, 
than which better school plants could hardly be found anywhere. 
Each of the schools has a capacious assembly room and is most 
fortunate in the possession of it. It enables each principal to bring 
his entire school together whenever he finds it desirable to do so; 
that is a splendid thing; the size of the company as they sit down 
together gives each pupil a sense of the importance of the under- 
taking in which they are engaged. The unity of the company is se- 
cured and school spirit with all its advantages of enthusiasm, pride, 
mutual helpfulness, seriousness, etc., follows. There is no more 
profitable lesson of the day than that which the pupils get by sitting 
together in the opening exercises. 

I want to commend, too, in the highest terms the persistent 
efforts and the good taste which principals and teachers have put 



20 

forth in ennobling and beautifying their school rooms and school 
halls with the best available pictures and sculpture. It was the 
conviction of one of the wisest of teachers that youth should be 
nurtured in pleasant places in the midst of refining surroundings, 
in order that the breezes of health and beauty might blow over their 
souls and gently and unconsciously harmonize their lives, and win 
them to the true beauty and orderliness which are the object of all 
our striving. Your teachers and principals are trying to provide 
such surroundings and to make their school rooms places meet for 
the dignity of education which will effectively foster and augment 
the aspirations of youth. All have succeeded in a marked degree, 
but some more than others. At the risk even of making an invid- 
ious comparison, I should like to say that your Columbian school 
has the best school decoration that I have ever seen. 

Fire Protection and Repairs to Buildings 

The buildings are not all as convenient as they should be and 
the fullest measure of protection against fire has not been provided, 
though when the work of reconstruction which is now going on at 
the Eastern school and at the Elmwood school is completed a much 
greater measure of security will have been attained. It seems too 
bad that this work of reconstructing school buildings should go 
on while the schools are in session, for it interferes greatly with 
school work. It should all be done in the summer time. I am 
told that the failure of the city authorities to allow money for it in 
time is the reason why the community must now lose through its 
disturbing the work of the children. If the authorities concerned 
will not prevent such unnecessary and easily avoidable waste of 
the time and energies of children, the laws should be changed to 
prevent it. Although it is not easily measured in dollars and cents 
the community is suffering a very real loss, — and it is not a small 
one, — because this work was not done at the right time. But even 
when it is completed, your schools will not be as free from danger 
by fire as they should be. The Elmwood school has a hallway too 
narrow and too obstructed for safety. The appropriation which 
was asked for to make it a safe place for the children should not 
have been refused and the Board of Education must not allow the 
matter to rest until this danger is removed. Again, I find one or 
two doors which open inward instead of outward in the classrooms 
of several of the schools. They can easily be changed, and as they 
stand present a very grave danger to the children. Fire drills are 
held regularly and principals and teachers are observing such pre- 
cautions as they can to protect the children. 

Bad Ventilation 

Neither the heating nor the ventilating of the elementary school 
buildings is satisfactory. Perhaps they cannot be made satisfactory, 
for in spite of the large claims of vendors of heating and ventilating 
apparatus, science has not yet devised a method for the proper ven- 



21 

tilation of school houses ; but they can be more successfully venti- 
lated than they now are. It has been calculated that foul air de- 
stroys 75% of the efficiency of school work. A board of education 
anxious to increase the efficiency of its schools can wrestle with this 
problem to advantage. The school physicians which it employs to 
visit the schools will furnish conclusive evidence that conditions 
should be materially improved. 

There are two things that may be done ; one is to make the 
firms which have installed the apparatus which is now in the schools 
live up to their guarantee that it will supply pure air in the quantity 
needed ; the other is to get apparatus which will more nearly do 
the work. Principals and teachers seem to be exercising due dili- 
gence in reading thermometers and adjusting drafts, but results ore 
not what they should be. 



Playgrounds 

Each of the elementary school buildings has large basement 
playrooms, but the school grounds of at least three of them are too 
small. Land could be purchased to enlarge the grounds of the 
Columbian school and it is needed there. More space would be an 
advantage at the Stockton school, and even the Ashland school 
could use more ground to advantage. The Franklin school has 
splendid large grounds, the Eastern and the Elmwood schools are 
well provided ; the Nassau and the Lincoln schools are not badly 
off. The school grounds of each building should be provided with 
simple and inexpensive playground apparatus. Only a little of it 
is required in each place ; Lut those school authorities who are con- 
vinced that the playground is more important than the school would 
insist upon having at least some playground equipment on the 
grounds of each school. East Orange has done well to provide a 
playing field for the pupils of her schools, and the Playground Com- 
mission is doing a commendable work there. 

But the High School which is almost without any ground space 
save that on which the building stands must almost monopolize the 
athletic field, while the chief value of playgrounds to school chil- 
dren consists in having them right at hand to be used before and 
after school and during recesses, while the stimulus of momentary 
freedom from the necessity to stay indoors and the presence of the 
whole company of children make every one take part in the games 
and the exercise that are possible to them. Now that we are be- 
giiming to see that physical training is really more important than 
any form of mental training, we shall make more and better pro- 
vision for it in every way that we can. The educational efficiency 
of a school system requires ample provision for playgrounds, just 
as certainly as it requires due attention to the teaching of reading, 
writing, and spelling. Unless it is providing these things in their 
proper measure, it is not as efficient as it can be made to be. East 
Orange is not behindhand as to playgrounds, but it can do more 
than it is now doing in respect to them. School gardens also are 



22 

an essential feature of the best equipped schools. They are not to 
be found here; yet nature study cannot properly be carried on 
without them, and they should be provided as soon as they can be. 

Equipment 

It is generally conceded that the elements which in their proper 
combination make a school are, in the order of their importance, the 
teacher, equipment and building. Of these by far the most im- 
portant is the teacher, and by far the least important is the build- 
ing; and while a satisfactory equipment is less important than a 
good teacher, it is more important than the building. In point of 
equipment I would rate these elementary schools as fair. Of seats 
and desks, blackboards and maps, there are perhaps enough. In 
adjustable seats, well adjusted to the needs of the pupils there is 
room for improvement. Of books there are not enough. Readers 
should be supplied in sets made up of different kinds of books, as 
well as of the same kinds of books. The supplementary reading 
matter which is supplied to the higher grades is well selected and 
rich both in quantity and quality. Dictionaries should be much 
more common and more commonly used. I think it is not extrava- 
gant to supply an unabridged dictionary and a brief encyclopedia 
to each 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade room. 

The school libraries should receive more attention. In some 
schools there are many more books than in others, and in some 
much more use is made of books than in others. School libraries 
should either be built up by the Board of Education or an arrange- 
ment should be made with the City Library to furnish books to each 
school, and the principal and teachers should foster and systematize 
their use by the children. Every elementary school should habitu- 
ate every grammar school child to the use of dictionaries, encyclo- 
pedias, and of books other than textbooks, both for the information 
they supply and for the pleasure they afford. 

Supplies are furnished with promptness and in reasonable 
quantity; their quality does not always give satisfaction to those 
who requisition for them. This difficulty, though not now serious, 
could be entirely removed if the supervisor who uses the materials 
should supply standard samples of supplies needed before the goods 
are bought. 

Protection of Health 

Of the High School we shall speak in another section. There 
are certain other general features of the school system which may 
be discussed here. The health of the school children is a matter of 
the gravest concern to all progressive boards of education and to 
the communities which they represent. Ample provision has been 
made for the physical examination of each child in the schools. 
These examinations are conducted by a staff of competent physi- 
cians. They are made each year, and the results are entered upon 
a cumulative record card which has spaces for the health record 



23 

of each child for his entire eight years of school attendance. Con- 
tagious diseases are carefully watched and the condition of eye- 
sight, hearing, teeth, lung and heart action, are carefully tested. If 
conditions are found that require medical attention, the parent is at 
once notified to take his child to a physician. All this is admirable. 
There should, we think, be a closer following up of all such cases 
to see, if possible, that the proper relief from disease is provided in 
each case. The proper measures will, of course, be taken in most 
cases, but not in all, and if the schools are to do their best service 
for the children they will do all in their power to get good health 
for them. 

It is not unreasonable to go a step further than they now go 
and in addition to notifying parents, to request them to report back 
to the school that action has been taken in each case and to follow 
up the report of each child who is in need of care until it is given. 
Quite properly the school should not do any prescribing. This sug- 
gested following up does not involve anything of that sort. 

The system of medical examination is not as complete in the 
High School as it should be. Reference will be made to it in a 
later section. 

Physical Training 

Physical training of a very satisfactory sort and under the di- 
rection of an able supervisor is being given in all the schools. 
Games are being played in the school rooms, and setting-up exer- 
cises are given. Every child is being taught to breathe, sit, and 
stand properly. Great interest is being taken in this work and it 
is certain to be abundantly successful. It would, I think, be im- 
proved if it were given in all the schools, as it is given in one of 
them (the Lincoln) where the children, instead of going into the 
hallways where the air is not likely to be of the best, open all the 
windows of their classroom and take their exercises practically in 
the open air. As this lesson is given at the same time in every room 
of the building, nobody is disturbed by the exercise. Free gym- 
nastics without apparatus offer the best forms of healthful exer- 
cise. Gymnasiums and apparatus are not necessary, perhaps not 
even desirable, in elementary schools. This work should go for- 
ward with the same enthusiasm with which it is now being con- 
ducted. A male instructor organizes the athletics of the higher 
grammar grades, and supervises a system of inter-school games. 
This is excellent and good results are certain to come from it. 

The Hours for Little Children 

But the school system is not conserving the health of its chil- 
dren in all ways. Some of its requirements are positively harmful 
to them. 

The transactions of the Royal Sanitary Institute of Great Bri- 
tain report a study, tabulated by Mr. Clement Dukes, showing how 
much work may safely be put upon a growing child. Its results are 
as follows : 



24 

Table E 

Hours of Hours of 
work sleep 

Ages of pupils. per day per night 

From 5 to 6 years . • i i^j^ 

" 6 " 7 " •• 1K2 13 

" 7 " 8 " 2 12% 

" 8 " 9 " 2y2 12 

" 9 " 10 " 3 11^ 

" 10 " 12 " 4 II 

" 12 " 14 " S IQl^ 

" 14 " 16 " 6 10 

" 16 " 18 " 7 9% 

" 18 " 19 " 8 9 

Pupils under five years of age attend one session of the kinder- 
garten in East Orange. "Other pupils except those barely five may 
attend both sessions when the numbers will permit" (Course of 
Study, p. 13). Except in rare cases no child who has reached the 
sixth birthday is admitted to a kindergarten. The Rules and Regu- 
lations prescribe that "kindergarten and first year classes may be 
excused at 11 .-30 a. m. and 2:45 p. m." Seventy-five minutes is the 
time per week allowed for recesses, according to the time table ; 
hence, four hours of work per day is provided for children from 5 
to 6 years of age and the same amount for children of from 6 to 7 
years of age; while those from 7 to 8 attend for four and one-half 
hours. This is too much work for little children, and the hours 
of confinement under school discipline are too long for them. Sleep 
and free play are more important to them than so much schooling. 
The State law, I am told, is in part responsible for this long school- 
day, but the law does not require full time attendance of little chil- 
dren; and if it did, a better distribution of time would enable them 
to omit the last wearying hour of the day. The researches of Jung 
and Freud are beginning to show us how overwhelmingly important 
the nature of infantile experience is. The crises of life, they main- 
tain, are to be found in its earliest years. All wearing and vexa- 
tious disturbances must be removed from them if after life is not 
to be distorted. 

Again, there is little warrant for assuming that there is any 
intellectual advantage derived from either early attendance or long 
hours for little ones. 

Home Study Required of Grammar School Pupils 

The same considerations apply in some measure to the length 
of the periods of required home study in the grammar grades. Reg- 
ular home study is, in one respect, a desirable thing, but the one 
hour and one-half required of seventh grade students, and the two 
hours per day required of eighth grade students, seem to me to pro- 
long the school day unduly and to make the working hours of chil- 
dren nearly as long as those of adults, leaving too little time for 
free, random reading, or for the multiplicity of concerns which youth 
must initiate and carry on for itself. The day is a split day, too, and 
the studying required must be done in the late afternoon or evening. 



25 

The papers which were submitted in the EngHsh test constitute 
a most interesting and suggestive document on the child hfe of the 
city of East Orange. They bring to our consciousness the wide 
world of action in which the children grow, outside of school walls 
and hours. An imposing list of activities is mentioned, from play- 
ing with dolls and dominoes, to cleaning the cellar and chicken coop, 
and delivering groceries. Very frequent mention is made of mov- 
ing picture shows, choir practice, music lessons, housecleaning, and 
sewing schools. One young sixth grade hero rescued a baby from 
a burning crib, and with fine presence of mind put flour on its body. 
Many of the children are already making Christmas presents. No 
one can read these papers and believe that children are naturally 
lazy; and the net impression is that overpressure of the American 
city school child is not an altogether imaginary danger. One feels 
that the boys and girls ought to have more real leisure and freedom 
and surely on Saturday. Leisure is a great educator. The children 
should have time for their own original devices, games and expe- 
ditions ; and for the undirected, spontaneous library reading which 
the returns clearly show they enjoy. This leisure time is already 
too much invaded by piano practice, sewing schools, theatre, shop- 
ping, etc. The school surely should not further encroach upon this 
"free time." 

But it does. In a great many of the returns, the children make 
records like the following: "Then I did my homework and went to 
bed." "i did my homework to have Sunday free." This "home- 
work," which apparently is an accepted part even of the child's Sat- 
urday is schoolwork, — it is grammar, arithmetic and spelling. Some- 
times this homework is mentioned in connection with sleepiness. 
''We had supper and I studied my lessons for one hour and forty 
minutes. Then my brother asked me some questions and said I had 
to study some more. Finally I grew tired and went to bed." 

Here is the way a 5th grade boy started the day: 7:15 — Got up 
and made his own bed; 8:15 went to choir practice; 10-12 went 
home and studied school lessons and Sunday School lessons. 

This sort of thing means pressure, and with nervous children it 
spells overpressure. There are, of course, a good many children who 
manage to have a care-free day of healthy play out of Saturday; 
but the school should not be guilty of adding to the burden of the 
serious and overconscientious children who sufifer both from school 
study and home study. 

The whole trend of educational hygiene, not to say legislation, 
is toward the abolition of home study. The practice in East Orange of 
expecting ^ of an hour of homestudy from 5th graders, i hour from 
6th, iy2 hours from 7th, and 2 hours from 8th, can be safely con- 
demned. First of all, the nervous systems of children are already suf- 
ficiently endangered by poor ventilation and insufficient sleep. Peda- 
gogically the practice of assigning home work fosters the undesirable 
American process or policy of lesson setting and lesson hearing. 
"The German teacher teaches" it has been said ; but the American 
teacher hears recitations. There are special evils in homestudy; 
"Tendencies to deception, slovenly work, formation of habits of 



26 

carelessness, dawdling, error and confusion." Dr. Friedrich 
Schmidt of Germany made an experimental study of the relative 
merits of home and of school study in children as old as 12 years. 
Even at this age he found homework strikingly inferior in results, 
especially in arithmetic, where there were about 300 errors in home 
exercises to 200 errors in school work. Dr. W. H. Burnham, a 
leading American authority in School Hygiene, after a conserva- 
tive, critical study of the problem concludes "The safe rule would 
seem to be that no homework should be prescribed, but where this 
seems desirable, suggestions for spontaneous work may well be 
given." 

In California "homework" is forbidden by law. Zurich also 
forbids it absolutely, and many European cities carefully limit the 
conditions under which it may be permitted. The International Con- 
gress of School Hygiene at Nuremburg, favored a resolution ad- 
vocating its abolition. A decided modification and curtailment or 
complete abolition of home study requirements in East Orange 
would undoubtedly be beneficial to the children, not only on Satur- 
days but on school days too. 

Most educators would, I think, agree that no child under seven 
years of age should go to school more than once a day, or for more 
than three hours a day ; and that no child under twelve should be 
in school more than five hours a day, or take any assigned work 
home for study in the evenings. After that age a limited amount 
of home work may be required. It should perhaps never exceed 
an hour in the case of elementary school pupils. 

Two Types of Schools 

There are two kinds of schools following two different con- 
ceptions of education. According to one kind the great thing is 
knowledge. It is stored up in books, in courses of study and in 
the minds of teachers and other learned folks. The purpose of 
school keeping is to retail it to children ; to pass it on from the 
places where it is to the places where it is not. That it may be 
passed on easily it must be prepared in little carefully molded cubes 
or accurately weighed doses. This is the work of textbook makers 
and of manufacturers of methods. Teaching, according to this 
view, consists in seeing to it that the young child takes the proper 
number of pellets of knowledge every day and the object of the 
recitation is to find out whether or not he has done so. Since what 
he has taken is knowledge in its essential form, he must retain it 
in the form in which he took it. To see that he has done this and 
is continuing to do it, there must be periodical inspections of his 
stock of knowledge. These are called examinations. They occur 
at regular intervals, since the amassing of a fixed amount of knowl- 
edge and the retention of it in its original condition is thought to 
be necessary before one can safely amass further knowledge. To 
summarize : The object of education, according to this view, is knowl- 
edge. The business of teaching is to put it where it is not. Text- 
books are to provide it. Recitations are to find out whether or not 



27 

it has been taken. Memory must retain it, and examinations must 
be given to test the knowledge state of pupils. Since knowledge 
is the one thing needful, the quantity of knowledge which can be 
compressed into the memory of a school child becomes a matter of 
vast importance. Courses of study are written chiefly, in many 
cases, to indicate the quantity which every good retailer of knowl- 
edge must succeed in lodging in the memory of each child. To 
cover the prescribed amount of work is the mark toward which the 
teacher is made to press, and toward which she is usually, in such 
a system, overpressed. That the superintendent and the principals 
may know that teacher and pupils are handling the required stint 
of knowledge, that teachers may know that pupils are stocking them- 
selves with it and retaining it in undiminished state, that parents 
may be assured that their children are amassing the fixed heaps of 
prescribed facts, that the children themselves "may know how much 
they know," great reliance is placed upon examinations. They are 
given with great regularity, their results are carefully tabulated. 
As soon as one is over, everybody settles down to preparing for the 
next one. Children are weighed and measured by them, are en- 
couraged or discouraged, are promoted or demoted, by them. This 
is called an examination system of schools. All that it does is neces- 
sary, but by no means as necessary as it conceives it. All that it 
does is important, but by no means so important as it regards it. 

The other kind of school looks upon knowledge, not as a fixed 
thing, but as a useful tool which men have shaped because they need 
it in living. It is not at all finished or final. Men made it by think- 
ing and men will improve it by thnking, and before anyone can use 
it or any part of it he must remake it through his own thinking for 
himself. What Moses thought, or Plato thought, or the maker of 
the arithmetic thought, will never do me any good, until I think it 
for myself. The great thing then for this school is not knowledge, 
but learning to use one's mind upon matters which men have found 
to be important by using their minds upon them. Textbooks are 
important because they suggest to us some things which are im- 
portant to think about. Courses of study try to do the same thing 
by picking out certain matters to think about longer and harder 
than others, and giving suggestions as to ways of thinking. Teach- 
ers are important because they stimulate us to think by surround- 
ing us with problems and reasons for solving them, and such help 
in going about the matter in profitable ways as we stand in need 
of. They help us to look at things, and study things, and talk about 
things, and repeat things and understand things, and memorize 
things that can best be thought about in these ways. And from 
time to time as may require, and to make themselves better ac- 
quainted with the success which we are achieving in our thinking, 
they set specific pieces of work for us to perform and examine our 
success in performing them with somewhat greater care than they 
can give to our day by day thinking. The number of textbook or 
course-of-study things that we think about in this kind of education 
is not so important as is the number of things we try to get in the 



28 

other kind; but the kind of thinking that we do is much more 
important. 

In the first kind of school everybody is hurried, teachers have 
to make children learn much more than they can possibly make them 
learn, while children have much more to study than they can pos- 
sibly understand, and many more things to do than they can possi- 
bly do well. Because everybody is hurried, short cuts are taken; 
things are not talked about that ought to be talked about at length ; 
words take the place of thoughts ; memory is made to do much that 
intelligence ought to perform. Habits of divided attention are de- 
veloped. The use of the mind which ought to be the most pleasant 
of all occupations becomes wearisome and repellant. The word 
school means leisure. The men who invented it gave it that name 
and until pressure is removed from it, it simply cannot perform 
its work. 

The Tendency at East Orange 

Neither of these kinds of school ever exists in a pure state; as 
we know them they are only tendencies. The question which we 
must ask in valuing any school system, is, which of these tendencies 
is uppermost in it. I have no hesitation in saying that more of the 
first than of the second is to be found at East Orange in the 
elementary schools. They tend to put results before processes. 
Neither teachers nor pupils are quite free enough in their work. 
Carrying out the instructions of the Course of Study, in detail, 
claims too much of the energy of the teachers. There is not enough 
time for individual work. Covering a certain amount of ground 
overtaxes the pupils; examinations have too large a place in every- 
body's mind. The reading of examination papers and the making 
of too frequent reports occupies too much of the time of those 
who teach, and fixes the minds of children too intently on the book- 
keeping aspects of school work. To succeed in an examination be- 
comes more important to them than to comprehend a subject. Re- 
port cards are sent home so frequently that parents seem to be 
absolved from the necessity of knowing anything else about the 
schools. 

In short, I think the emphasis is put in the wrong place. Ex- 
aminations play too large a part ; too much written work is given ; 
the examinable features of a subject get more than their share of 
attention. Records are kept of failures that ought to be forgotten 
in the light of subsequent atonement. Standards of marking vary 
so extremely that much injustice can hardly fail to be done. 

What concerns the Course of Study will be found in another 
place. 

Recommendations 

In this connection I would recommend a shifting of emphasis 
from an examination system to a system which uses examinations 
more as incidental features of its work. The regularity of the 
monthly tests should be broken up. Teachers should be expected to 



give as frequent reviews as the nature of the subject matter studied 
demands ; and such written lessons from time to time as the neces- 
sities of good instruction may require ; but these lessons should not 
be featured as of more significance than they are, and they should 
come at irregular times. Formal examinations are serviceable when 
not too numerous, and should perhaps be given at the end of each 
semester, but as they are valuable chiefly in providing a need for a 
thorough review of the work of the term and a bringing together 
of the parts of the study which is being pursued, and for the train- 
ing which they give in meeting a difficult and not unfamiliar emer- 
gency ; all should take them, and other methods should be employed 
to keep the deportment of students at or above 85%, 

The daily-work mark will serve its purposes best if it is not 
entered daily but kept in mind until one is quite certain that it is 
correct. The monthly mark will, I believe, serve best if it is the 
teacher's estimate on the basis of oral and written lessons and de- 
portment of the fact that the pupil is among the best in the class, 
or among the next best, or among the third-class students of the 
subject. As the daily work is the main thing in a school, a stu- 
dent with good daily work and a poor examination is still a good 
student; whereas one with poor daily work and a good examination 
is a poor student. The examination from the standpoint of the pu- 
pil should be just one of the significant lessons of the course. 
It should not count for a half in his rating ; perhaps for not more than 
10% in his term's work. Tests which are intended to keep super- 
intendents, principals and teachers well informed as to the success 
or failure of their teaching should be given at irregular times, as 
often as need be, to provide this information ; but since they reveal 
the success of failure of the teaching and not the present worth of 
the pupil, the pupil should not be rated by them; but the teaching 
should be corrected and the pupils' work estimated only after the 
defects of the teaching have been eliminated. 

The Duties of Supervisors 

One fertile source of confusion, worry and overwork to the 
teachers in a school system is due to the failure on the part of the 
board of education and of the superintendents to fix the limits 
which supervisors of special subjects must observe in their work. 
This office of supervisor is a somewhat anomalous one. The ex- 
ecutive and administrative control of the work of teaching is en- 
trusted by the board to a superintendent and a corps of principals, 
but a staff of supervisors of special subjects, such as primary read- 
ing, music, drawing, gymnastics, primary manual work, writing, 
etc. , are constantly going from school room to school room and each 
presses the teachers to give more attention to his special work than 
is being given, and to get better results in it, etc., etc. Here is a 
new administrative authority which is usually rather too independent 
of superintendent and principal to function successfully in an admin- 
istrative role. The duties of supervisors must be carefully defined. 
They are teachers of teachers in special subjects. They should go 



30 

about explaining the best methods of teaching their subjects, giving 
model lessons, stirring up enthusiasm, etc. ; but as they belong to the 
instructional and not to the superintending staff, it should be clearly 
understood that they have no authority to give orders as to the 
amount of work to be done or to rebuke teachers for not doing it, 
or to rate teachers in their work, or in any way assume these func- 
tions of superintendents and principals. Whatever suggestions they 
have to make along these lines should be made to principals and 
superintendents and by them to the teachers whose work is in ques- 
tion. What I have said here is not a criticism of the work of the 
supervisors, but does, T think, point to a regulation which should 
be mtroduced to keep their work from interfering with that of other 
officers of the system. 

Tenure of Office Law 

There is one other feature which does not yet, but will in time, 
tend to lower the efficiency of the schools. I refer to the State ten- 
uie of office law. Security in office during good and efficient ser- 
vice is something which all interested in the public schools pray 
earnestly for, but lodgment in office for life is quite another matter. 
It is practically impossible to prove professional incompetency in 
court; and places where teachers can appeal to the courts for final 
review of adverse action against them by boards of education and 
are practically never dismissed, have poor schools. Such tenure of 
office is good for the clerk, but bad for the work. They should 
of course have the right to demand a public hearing, but it should 
be conducted by the board of education, not by a court. The best 
kind of tenure of office is that which an enlightened public demands 
and insists upon for its teachers. Both teachers and people are un- 
fortunate in having any other kind. 

How Pupils are Promoted 

The superintendent's statement of how promotions are made 
is as follows : "We have annual promotions, but in all rooms up to 
the seventh grade we have two sections, one of which is capa- 
ble of moving a little more rapidly than the other in the heavier sub- 
jects. In all first year rooms there are three sections of different 
advancement. In all cases pupils are moved from one section to a 
higher or lower section as their progress merits. These changes 
are constantly being made. There is no fixed limit for the year's 
work in first, second, or third year grades. Each section advances 
as far as possible, consistent with thorough work. After the third 
year limits are more closely adhered to and a somewhat modified 
Cambridge plan is followed." 

One of the Regulations reads : When failures stand against a 
pupil in studies equivalent to two daily studies extending through a 
year, he shall be placed in the next lower grade, but no pupil shall 
be kept in a grade longer than two years. Pupils thus passed to 
higher grades shall not thus secure entrance to or graduation from 
the High School. 



31 

Demotion is such a serious tragedy in the Hfe of a child that 
the utmost effort possible must be made to prevent it. It is clearly 
the intention of all the school authorities to make this effort. Even 
so, I think more could be done than is now being done. The quan- 
tity of the work done should not be the determining consideration ; 
the ability to profit by the work of the next grade should be. There 
should be more time for individual work with backward pupils. 
In the more serious cases home conditions should be looked into 
and the heartier cooperation of parents secured. Special examina- 
tions by the school physicians sometimes locate special physical 
causes of the backward condition. The tests in spelling and arith- 
metic show scattered cases of marked deficiency. Very often this 
deficiency is in one subject. These children call for special atten- 
tion and individual instruction. There are usually ascertainable 
reasons for their lack of success. The fqct that arithmetic claims 
the greatest number of the specialized laggards is significant. 

The provision for special instruction in ungraded classes is 
most commendable. The "uneasy class" for pupils who find the rea- 
sonable orderliness of their classrooms too irksome relieves the busy 
teacher of the "one bad boy" who in some systems is such an ef- 
fective agent in reducing the efficiency of all about him. 

The special class for mentally atypical children in charge of a 
teacher specially trained for her work at Vineland is a good feature 
which may be copied with profit elsewhere. The "backward classes" 
are doing a good and necessary work. Another class (ungraded) 
for children who do not fit well into the groups where they are, in 
some cases for temperamental reasons, in others because of loss of 
courage, would be a desirable addition. It would not only make 
their success more certain, but make that of the rooms from which 
they are taken more possible. 

Retardation 

The age and grade classifications submitted by the principals of 
all the elernentary schools give the following results as to the num- 
ber of pupils in their normal classification and the number out of it. 



Table F 



1 >:? 
1 ^ 


> 




I 


03 




> 

V) 


> 




-I 


> 




1 f>. 












^ 


*-» 


1 


^ 


fv 


I 


^ 










•»v. 


tr> 


A3 








"»^ 


^ 










^0 


"V. 








C; 

\ 


> 
















00 


> 

^ 


00 




vS 


m 








:h 


^ 
^ 






OD 


Co 




w> 


, 


















<5- 




•0 


*-~ 




»^ 


>S 












^ 


^ 
^ 

^ 


CO 


O 




^ 




>0 






^ 

f^ 






^ 

^ 


^ 


0- 




("V 






$ 


ts- 








to 


^ 


00 






' — 




^ 












^ 


6- 


v^ 






5^ 


•*^ 










^ 

> 
> 


<> 


^ 


5^ 


C- 
^ 
N^ 


^ 














II >- 
1 ^ 

1 ^ 


-vO 


^ 






•v» 














^0 


*** 


'^ 


cvi 
























■»- 


- 


<M 


ro 


'^r 


lo 


-^ 


e^ 


CO 




s 



56617 



33 
Table G 



Percentage of Elementary School Pupils Over Age and Under 
Age in the Public Schools of East Orange 





Normal 


Over Normal Age 


Under 

Normal 

Age 


^"■^"^^ Age 


I Year 


2 Years 


3 Years 


4 Years 
or more 


Totals 


K'dgtn. 


99.8% 


0.2% 


V.2% 

3-6% 

6.3% 

11.1% 

12.7% 

11-7% 

16.1% 

6.0% 

8.01% 


o'.7% 
1.1% 
2.5% 
4-5% 
6.0% 

7-1% 
7-1% 
1.8% 

3-53% 


o'.V%' 

o'.8% 
2.7% 
3-?,% 
o-7% 

1.10% 


0.2% 




I 

2 

3 
4 
5 
6 

7 

8 

*i-8 


80 
76 
68 

55 
56 
49 
49 
61 

63 


1% 
5% 
1% 
8% 
8% 
4% 
4% 
2% 
87% 


6 

9 

13 

16 

17 
24 
20 
22 
15 


3% 
5% 
6% 
7% 
6% 
9% 
7% 
4% 
30% 


8 
14 
23 
35 
39 
44 
43 
30 
27 


3% 
2% 
2% 
0% 
6% 
4% 
9% 
2% 
95% 


II 
9 
8 

9 
3 
6 

7 
8 
8 


5% 
3% 
6% 
1% 
5% 
1% 
6% 
5% 
18% 


*i-8 


2367 


567 


297 


131 


41 


1036 


303 



* Note. — Exclusive of kindergarten. 

Note. — Normal age is taken as 4-6 for kindergarten; 6-8, 7-9, 8-10, 
9— II, 10-12, 11-13, 12-14, S'l^d 13—15 for grades i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, 

respectively. 



Table H 

From the U. S. Bureau of Education, Bui. No. 5 — 191 
(Inquiry of December 1908) 



Elemen- 
tary 
Grades. 
Boys. 


54-4% 


20.6% 


11.8% 


5-9% 


2.1% 


40.4% 


5-2% 


Girls. 


57-7% 


20.9% 


11-5% 


3-7% 


1.6% 


37-7% 


4-6% 



This comparison of age and grade conditions in 1908 with condi- 
tions as they are now shows that much improvement has been made 
in three years. The over normal age figures are still much too high. 
They are somewhat due to the fact that the town is adding to its 
population by people moving there from other places. "We find our- 
selves badly affected by the fact that we have a large floating popu- 
lation/' writes the superintendent. "Our requirements seem to be 
higher than most of the newcomers are accustomed to, and this 
results in repetition of grades and the raising of the age average. 
This is especially true in second, seventh, and eighth grades, but is 
serious throughout the grammar grades." It seems to us to be so 
serious as to require a change in the course of study, more individ- 
ual work and perhaps new types of schools for certain upper grade 
pupils. 



34 



Table I 

The following table shows the results of the midyear examina- 
tions 1910-11 in the five grammar schools having graduating classes: 



Percentage Percentage 
No. in No. No. No. Failed of Failed of 

Subject Class Excused Examined Failed Whole Class Examined 
— Entire Graduating Class by Schools — 



School 



Ashland 


Arith. 


55 


14 


39 


17 


31 


44 




Geog. 


55 


27 


28 


3 


5 


II 




Gram. 


55 


12 


43 


II 


20 


26 




Hist. 


55 


29 


26 


2 


4 


7 


Eastern 


Arith. 


70 


14 


56 


6 


9 


n 




Geog. 


70 


28 


42 


3 


4 


7 




Gram. 


70 


19 


SI 


6 


9 


12 




Hist. 


70 


39 


31 


6 


9 


30 


Franklin 


Arith. 


41 


32 


9 


6 


14 


67 




Geog. 


40 


29 


II 


2 


5 


18 




Gram. 


41 


29 


12 


I 


2 


8 




Hist. 


40 


27 


13 











Columbian 


Arith. 


44 


20 


24 


2 


5 


8 




Geog. 


45 


17 


28 


4 


9 


14 




Gram. 


45 


15 


30 


12 


27 


40 




Hist. 


45 


19 


26 


5 


II 


19 


Nassau 


Arith. 


70 


19 


51 


8 


II 


15 




Geog. 


70 


24 


46 


10 


14 


2Z 




Gram. 


70 


33 


37 


13 


19 


35 




Hist. 


70 


42 


28 


4 


5 


14 



35 



Table J 

The following shows the results of final examinations, gram- 
mar schools, June, 191 1: 















Percentage 


Percentage 






No. in 


No. 


No. 


No. 


Failed of 


Failed of 


School 


Subject 


Class 


Excused 
—EIGHTH 


Examined 
GRADE— 


Failed 


the Class 


Examined 


Ashland 


Arith. 


28 


12 


16 


I 


4 


6 




Arith. 


26 


15 


II 


I 


4 


9 




Geog. 


54 


36 


18 


2 


4 


1 1 




Gram. 


54 


19 


35 













Hist. 


54 


28 


26 


I 


2 


4 




Spell. 


54 


24 


30 


3 


6 


10 


Eastern 


Arith. 


41 


22 


19 













Geog. 


41 


30 


II 


I 


2 


9 




Gram. 


41 


26 


15 













Hist. 


41 


29 


12 


I 


2 


8 




Spell. 


40 


27 


13 


2 


5 


15 


Franklin 


Arith. 


41 


36 


5 













Geog. 


41 


22 


19 


2 


5 


10 




Gram. 


41 


31 


10 


I 


2 


10 




Hist. 


41 


34 


7 


2 


5 


28 




Spell. 


41 


18 


23 











Columbian 


Arith. 


45 


21 


24 













Geog. 


45 


23 


22 


2 


4 


9 




Gram. 


45 


18 


27 


2 


4 


7 




Hist. 


45 


25 


20 


5 


II 


25 




Spell. 


45 


19 


26 


2 


4 


8 


Nassau 


Arith. 


24 


6 


18 


10 


42 


56 




Arith. 


40 


26 


14 


2 


5 


14 




Geog. 


24 


3 


21 


3 


13 


14 




Geog. 


40 


25 


15 













Gram. 


24 


6 


18 


4 


17 


22 


1 


Gram. 


40 


28 


12 













Hist. 


24 


4 


20 


6 


25 


30 




Hist. 


40 


27 


13 













Spell. 


24 


2 


22 


I 


4 


5 




Spell. 


40 


20 


20 


I 


3 


5 



Table K 

The following table shows reasons why pupils left school dur- 
ing the year 1910-11 to June ist, 191 1. Totals for all elementary 
schools : 



o^ 



c^ 



0) 



00 

c 
•c 



o 
o 

u 

en 






1 



o 
o 

y 
CD 



c 
B 



o 
H 



Totals 










•*> 




P0< 
00 

M 






HI 








M 




to 

?^ 

o 

m 












(U 

Q 










M 


M 


W 


O 

pq 












c 

(U 




« 








M 




02 

O 

pq 














t3 
a> 

+-> 
o 

a 
e 


J2i 
O 








to 


lO 


(7. 


1 

pq 




M 


" 


M 


•♦ 


Sent to 
Special 
Classes 














ro 


o 
pq 






W 


M 


ro 


Dropped to 
Lower 
Grade 




H 


•* 


-^ 


■<1- 


:? 




(0 

o 
pq 


IH 


00 


- 


VO 




■CO 


en 

o 


M 


« 


M 


■«t 


=0 


O 

M 


03 
O 

pq 


M 






w 


<M 




O 




00 

H 


lO 




00 


00 


05 
>^ 
O 


00 


H 


o> 


o* 


CO 


O " 


5 


vr> 


■"J- 


(1 


CA 


o 




pq 


M 


• 






H 


o 


3 


N 


■* 




M 


»». 


M 

m 


o 

pq 


fO 


»o 


n 


vO 


1-1 


\Reason 

Grade \ 




00 


5 


> 

< 


J3 
■(J 
o 




4 



37 

VI. — The Teachers and Their Work 

The Regulations governing the certification of teachers pre- 
scribe that candidates for the principalship of primary and gram- 
mar schools must hold the diploma of an approved college or state 
normal school and have had a successful experience of at least two 
years. Candidates for positions as primary and grammar school 
teachers and special assistants must have had a successful experience 
of at least one year and must hold the diploma of an approved col- 
lege, state normal school, or city normal school, a first grade New 
Jersey county certificate, a New Jersey state certificate — received 
by examination — or a first grade state certificate received by exam- 
ination in another state, the certificate system of which has been 
approved. Candidates for positions in the High School must hold 
the diploma of an approved college or university, and have had at 
least one year's successful experience. Candidates for positions as 
kindergarteners must be high school or normal school graduates 
and must hold the diploma of an approved kindergarten training 
school in which the course of study covers at least two years. They 
must have had at least one year of successful experience. Candi- 
dates for positions as assistant kindergarteners must be graduates of 
a kindergarten training school. These are the written qualifica- 
tions ; the unwritten ones are much higher. 

The Superintendent of Schools is constantly gathering informa- 
tion about unusually promising candidates for membership in his 
corps. He finds out what he can as to their training and success in 
teaching, then he visits them in their class rooms, sees how they 
vvork. When a vacancy occurs he is usually able to nominate a 
thoroughly trained and competent person to fill it. This important 
duty could not, I am sure, be more conscientiously and carefully 
performed. As a result the personnel of the teaching company in 
East Orange could hardly be improved upon. It is unfortunate that 
men teachers are not to be found in any of the upper grade class 
rooms, but unless they were as capable as the women who are now 
there they would not be an element of strength. The principals of the 
elementary schools are an exceptionally able group of men. Their 
attitude toward the children under their care could hardly be better 
than it is, while their considerate and kindly leadership is a constant 
source of strength to their teachers. I am of the belief that their 
duties are too much detailed for them, and that they are not left 
free enough from the necessity of making reports and of teaching 
classes a fixed number of hours per week to become as familiar 
with the instruction which is being given in their schools as they 
should be. The principal of a twelve-room school is directed to 
teach regularly not less than 400 minutes, nor more than 500 per 
week. This is very nearly a third of the entire school time and 
while this required amount is considerably less in the case of prin- 
cipals of larger buildings, it is still too large, and rather too defin- 
itely fixed to allow the best results. The principal is the captain of a 
ship, the commander of a station, and he should be entirery free 
within wide limits to use his own discretion in administering his 



38 

command. He should be accountable for what goes on in his jur- 
isdiction and to be accountable he must be put largely upon his own 
resources. General principles must, of course, be laid down, but 
ways and means must be left almost entirely to the local commander. 
This is so delicate a matter that it is never an easy one for a super- 
ior officer to adjust. 

One trouble with boards of education almost everywhere is 
that in their eagerness to perform all the duties of their office they 
perform many duties which for the real good of the undertaking 
should be performed by the educators whom they employ. The 
same excess of zeal makes superintendents perform more than their 
share of administrative work and leave too little for their principals 
and teachers to decide and adjust. And principals too are too apt 
tc arrange everything for their teachers and leave too little to their 
initiative. While the great and besetting sin of teachers, which as 
yet only very exceptional ones escape, is to teach too much. I have 
tried in another place in this report to show that this tendency is due 
to a mistaken notion of what knowledge is and to a conception of 
education that follows from this mistaken notion. No one person 
is to blame for it and school systems throughout the whole country 
suffer from it. It is hard for boards of education and superinten- 
dents and principals and teachers who are thoroughly in earnest to 
keep from doing more than their own work, yet a democracy of 
effort is best and one of the precepts which administrative officers 
must remember is to let the other fellow do his part. His freedom 
is essential to his welfare. To over-systematize his affairs for him 
is quite as bad for his development as not to systematize them 
enough. This is peculiarly true of educational work ; of teaching 
in which the participation of minds in due measure is the one es- 
sential thing. 

I have dwelt upon this point at length for the majority of the 
teacheis in the elementary schools of East Orange are doing too 
much teaching, not too little of it. The pupils are doing too little 
studying and thinking, and too much getting of lessons and reciting. 
A systematic effort on the part of all concerned should be instituted 
to correct this tendency. Study classes for teachers should be 
formed by the Superintendent and the principals. Such excellent 
books as McMurry's "How to Study and Teaching How to Study ;" 
Strayer's "A Brief Course in the Teaching Process ;" and Dewey's 
"How We Think," should be read and discussed by all. These books 
and others like them contain the best discussions of the teacher's 
work which we have. Nobody who follows this profession is ex- 
empt from the need to know what they contain. If objection be 
made that the teachers already know how to teach and should not 
be asked to learn more about this subject, we would reply that no- 
body knows how to teach, — that it is the finest and most difficult of 
all the arts ; that as yet nothing more than a beginning has been made 
in the science of education ; that no teacher not even the most suc- 
cessful can fail to profit by what others have thought and said about 
his cabling; that "nothing is worth doing that is not worth thinking 
about" all the time, continuously, and education least of all. 



39 

The discipline of the schools is good. Everybody works hard 
and very few seem to be inclined to interfere with the work of 
their neighbors. In going into the class rooms of all the buildings 
I did not see one serious act of disorder. This good condition is due 
to home training, to the seriousness of the work and the personality 
of the teachers. Repeated admonition is required to get good "posi- 
tion," but not to get good order. The "uneasy class" helps greatly 
and is a wise provision. The children are acquiring habits of cour- 
tesy and consideraton which will serve them well through their lives. 

Table L 

The Enrollment by Schools and the Distribution of the 
Teaching Force 

Total Average 

School Enroliment Belonging 

High School 716 656 

Ashland School 670 602 

Eastern School 574 495 

Franklin School 747 660 

Elmwood School 836 666 

Columbian School 597 511 

Nassau School 674 595 

Stockton School 632 540 

Lincoln School 457 394 

5903 51 19 

There are this year 186 in the teaching force, besides the super- 
intendent : 

Kindergarten 16 

Primary 57 

Grammar 48 

Special assistants (one in each primary and grammar 

school — general helper and substitute and coach) . 8 

Special, slow, first year classes 2 

Special, backward class, ist to 3d years i 

Special class for slow children of the 3d and 4th years i 
Special "Uneasy class" for boys, 3d to 7th years in- 
clusive I 

Primary and grammar principals, (male. ) . • 8 

High School Principal i 

High school teachers (not including manual training.) 27 
Manual Training 

Woodwork \ 2 '"^" 

{ 2 women 

Arts and Crafts 2 " 

Sewing 2 " 

Cooking 2 " 

Music supervisor i 

Drawing 

Supervisor i 

Assistant i 

(These also teach freehand drawing in the High School) 

Physical training \ ^ "^^" 

•^ ^ I I woman 

Penmanship (half time) I " 

First year primary supervisor i " 

(This teacher. Miss Herron, acts as a regular teacher ' 

of first grade during four days of the week). 



40 

VII. — ^The Course of Study and the Teaching of the Several 
Subjects in the Elementary Schools 

A new course of study is needed and is being prepared. There 
are certain considerations which I think should be kept in mind in 
making it. The course of study is not a demand made upon the 
members of a teaching corps by the school authorities. It is a co- 
operative formulation in outline of the task which they purpose to 
undertake. Everyone concerned should have a part in the making 
of it, — the parents, the teachers, the principals, the superintendents, 
and finally the board of education. Not only should opportunity be 
given to each one to express his views upon what should go into it, 
but each one should be brought to feel that he has a duty to express 
his views. Not all these views can find a place in it when it is draft- 
ed, but everyone of them should be taken into account in the making 
of it. The superintendent and the principals must study what is be- 
ing done elsewhere and supply most of the course ; and they must 
reduce it to its final form; but they must use the knowledge of par- 
ents and teachers in constructing it, else it will not embody the best 
thought of the community as to what should be attempted in its 
schools. To make a course of study in this way is a long and hard 
undertaking. It should be a special order of business for not less 
than an entire year. In some measure this method has been fol- 
lowed. 

Again the course of study should not attempt to tell in detail 
what is to be taught in each subject nor to give more than an outline 
of the methods to be used. It should indicate the larger subject- 
units to be treated and something as to the best methods of handling 
them. Beyond this it should not be prescriptive, for it is the teacher 
who must do the teaching, and if teaching is to be an intellectual 
work it must allow plenty of room for the selection of matter to be 
considered and the choice of method to be followed. Unless the 
teacher is an agent with discretion, teaching becomes merely carry- 
ing out orders — a mechanical and not a stimulating and vivifying 
work. On the other hand, it is necessary that the undertaking be 
sufficiently systematized to be a definite one. An outline by subject- 
units of the minimum amount of work to be done by each grade is 
required, and in fixing this minimum account should be taken of 
the fact that children's diseases and other interferences keep pupils 
from school a certain number of days each year, so that a minimum 
amount of work should be fixed which can be performed without 
undue effort in the time which remains after the normal period of 
inevitable absence is subtracted from the whole number of teaching 
days in the year. It is the quality of the work which counts, not 
its quantity. It is not a fact that the course of study contains too 
many subjects, but it is a fact that it commonly requires too much 
work in each subject to allow for the degree of thoroughness that 
should be achieved. 

Almost with one accord teachers protest that they have not 
time to perform their work as they would. In the high school it is 



41 

the requirements of the colleges which keep them from teaching 
as they would ; in the elementary schools it is the amount of work 
prescribed by the course of study. This is manifestly wrong and a 
change should be brought about. There must be a selecting of prin- 
ciples, ideas, and ideals to be taught. Fundamental matters should 
have the right of way over subsidiary matters. As much time should 
be taken as is required to do all that is done well ; then what re- 
mains to be done can well be left to the well-trained person which 
the pupil has become, to perform if need be in his after school life. 
This is certain : that the teacher who is under bondage to the course 
of study, or who leans too heavily upon it, is not performing the 
full functions of a teacher. There are certain changes in school 
work which I should like to present for the consideration of the 
superintendent, principals and teachers of East Orange. 

The first concerns the kindergarten ; would it not be better not 
to allow any kindergarten children to attend for more than a half- 
day, and to eliminate all prescribed primary school work from its 
course of study? The experience of other communities confirms 
this view, and the new knowledge which we begin to have as to the 
importance of freedom from undue constraint in the first years of 
childhood ratify it. 

There is no printed timetable which tells exactly how it is sug- 
gested that the time of teachers and pupils be distributed to the 
several subjects. Instead the timetable printed in the course of study 
which bears date of 1908 was handed to me with a supplementary 
note which reads "Time for manual training increased in all grades. 
In eighth grade this becomes 90 minutes per week." Arithmetic 
and geography correspondingly reduced; history and grammar 
somewhat reduced in the eighth grades ; the latter to give more 
time to composition. I have therefore put down 40 minutes for 
manual training in the first four grades, and subtracted half of it 
from arithmetic, 10 minutes from writing and 10 minutes from 
"poetry and science ;" and have increased the time for manual train- 
ing in the 5th, 6th, and 7th years to 50 minutes, taking 10 minutes 
from reading in each grade. In the 8th grade 50 minutes is added 
to manual training mal<ing 90 in all, and 25 minutes of that I have 
subtracted from arithmetic, and the rest from geography. This does 
not give the distribution exactly as it is made, but it is near enough 
for purposes of comparison. The time table thus changed stands 
as follows : 



42 

Table M 



Subject 


Year 


2 
Year 


3 
Year 


4 
Year 


5 
Year 


6 
Year 


Year 


8 
Year 


Total 


Arithmetic 

History 

English : 

Spelling 

Grammar and 
Composition . 

Reading 

Geography 

Writing 


i8o 

75 

75 
45° 

"65 
60 
80 

50 
60 

50 
75 
50 
40 


230 

175 

100 
350 

90 
60 
95 
50 
60 

50 
75 
50 
40 


230 

175 

100 

350 
100 
90 
60 
95 
50 
60 

50 

50 
40 


230 

100 

130 
300 

150 
90 
60 
90 

SO 
60 

50 

50 
40 


250 

100 

190 
190 
200 

75 
80 
80 

50 
60 

75 

50 
50 


200 
160 

75 

240 
no 
160 
60 
80 
80 
50 
60 

75 

50 
50 


200 
160 

75 

240 

no 

160 

60 

80 

80 

50 
60 

75 

50 
50 


175 
160 

75 

240 
120 

135 
60 
80 
80 

50 
60 

75 

50 
90 


1695 
480 

850 

1980 

90s 
590 


Drawing 


560 


Poetry and Science 

Calisthenics 

Music 


680 
400 
480 


Opening Exercises 
Recess 


500 
150 


Dismissal 

Manual Training. . 


400 
400 


Totals 


1320 


1425 


1450 


1450 


1450 


1450 


1450 


1450 


11,445 



Unaccounted for, 15 minutes in the first year and 50 minutes in 
the fourth. 



Table N 

Per Cent, of the Total Instruction Time Given to Each Subject 
in Rochester, Indianapolis and Kansas City 1907-8, 
Cleveland 1908-9. and East Orange 



Reading 

Spelling 

Grammar 

Language, Composition and 
Supplementary Reading . 

Writing 

Arithmetic 

Geography — History 

Music 

Drawing 

Manual Training 

Physical Training — Physi- 
ology and Hygiene 

Elementary School Science. 



Rochester 



6-57 
1.99 



Indianap- 
olis 



17 


80 


5 
2 


33 
16 


18 
7 


03 
86 


II 

9 
6 


97 
66 

85 


9 
2 


45 
16 


8 


65 



99 92 



Kansas 
City 



14.50 

10 .70 
I .00 

11 .20 
9.66 

15.10 
14 . 10 



6 
II 

3 



60 
50 
00 



4 .00 
311 

104.47 



Cleveland 



5-31 
o .00 



99 96 



East 
Orange 



19 



3 87 
6.58 



99.99 



43 

An inspection of the table shows that the subjects of instruc- 
tion in East Orange are much the same and receive much the same 
attention as in the other cities whose courses are given. This is the 
conventional American school course. Progressive cities are break- 
ing away from it. They are beginning to give less time to reading 
and arithmetic, more to history, geography, and manual training 
and industrial work. 

History 

Going back to the school time table, we note that history is 
begun in the 6th grade. It should be begun much earlier. Much 
of the story telling of the second and third grades should be about 
the beginnings of our country. The children should get their first 
accounts of the nation's great men and their great deeds from the 
lips of their teachers ; afterward they may read these stories ; but 
it is in the nature of things that at first they should hear them. In 
the people's schools of Germany the instruction in the history of 
the Fatherland throughout all grades is oral. The course of study 
should give a suggested list of such stories, some of which may 
be read as well as told by the teachers. In the fourth year this work 
should get more attention. Such books as McMurry's American 
Pioneer History Stories may be put in the hands of pupils to be 
read in school. Such subjects as "Henry Hudson and what he did," 
"The Early Dutch Settlers," "Champlain and His Explorations,'* 
"The Five Nations," "La Salle and His Hardships" may be looked up 
and reported by the class. In the fifth grade a well selected introduc- 
tory history may be used. It should be a story-telling account of men 
and deeds. I have found it highly profitable to put a simple course 
in general history into the sixth grade. Such a book as Niver's 
"Great Names and Nations" may be read and talked about. So many 
children leave school at the end of the elementary course, that it 
seems desirable to make them more acquainted than we now do 
with the greatest names and events of the world's history. Much 
reading can be done in connection with this course and it will 
be found to be useful in many ways. It is to be hoped that the 
elementary course of study prescribed by state authorities will be 
liberal enough to permit it to be given. United States History can 
be studied intensively in the 7th and 8th grades. It should treat 
large formative movements, social institutions, and national and 
municipal activities and lead to an elementary understanding of the 
civic and social life of our country. 

Arithmetic 

An intensive study of arithmetic is prescribed for each of the 
eighth grades. It is generally conceded that the essential part of 
arithmetic can be taught in three years, though it is contended that 
it cannot be retained if taught only for a short time as if studied 
for a longer period (D. E. Smith, The Teaching of Arithmetic, p. 
"jy?) From the tests made by Dr. Rice, of 6,000 children in the 



44 

schools of seven cities, he concluded that "there is no direct 
relation between time and result" as factors of successful work in 
arithmetic. Mr. Stone in his Arithmetical Abilities," summarizes 
his conclusion upon this point in these words: "Insofar as these 
twenty-six systems are a representative measure, there is very little 
relation between arithmetical abilities and time expenditure in pres- 
ent practice. Many systems are wasting time on arithmetic. They 
not only do not afford a rich life to the child, but they do not afford 
him abilities in arithmetic." The question is still an unsettled one 
but it would seem that arithmetic is not a necessary study in the 
first grade and perhaps not even the second. At any rate, some 
school systems are getting excellent results from five years of the 
study of arithmetic, and some even from four. The total time given 
to this subject at East Orange is not excessive as compared with 
some other schools and excellent results are attained, but the ques- 
tion remains, is it necessary for the pupil to make such a large out- 
lay of time upon this subject to obtain a thoroughly satisfactory 
knowledge of fundamental processes and useful knowledge? It 
used to be thought that teaching arithmetic made the mind stronger 
to grapple with any subject. Now it is known that teaching arith- 
metic teaches arithmetic and little else. 

Then, too, there is grave danger of making children mentally 
stale by keeping them repeating a subject after its parts are familiar 
to them. Would it not be better in place of stretching arithmetic 
over eight years to compress it into five or at the most six? We 
recommend that it be begun not earlier than the middle of the sec- 
ond year, and that the arithmetic of that year be largely a work 
of counting and measuring objects, writing figures and making 
combinations of numbers up to six. Addition, subtraction, multipli- 
cation and division constitute the fundamental processes of arith- 
metic. There should be a daily drill upon them in every classroom 
from the third to the eighth grade. The combinations should be 
learned and repeated in rapid oral drills such as I have seen given al- 
most perfectly in one of the schools, until every pupil has attained 
both speed and something approximating complete accuracy in hand- 
ling them. The speed and vivacity with which this work is done has 
much to do with the pupils' mastery of the subject. Beyond skill in 
fractions, both common and decimal, a good knowledge of percen- 
tage, familiarity with the tables which are most commonly used, 
and a practical acquaintance with mensuration, there is but little 
of first rate importance in arithmetic unless commercial practice is 
taught. The course of study should furnish a judicious selection 
of subject matter in this study. There is perhaps no other one with 
the exception of grammar where selection is so necessary. 

To test the relative accuracy pupils of in the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th 
grades in performing the fundamental operations the Superinten- 
dent at my request asked that an arithmetic test be given in all the 
schools. The problems sent out were those given some years ago 
by the Educational Commission of Cleveland, Ohio. They are as 
follows : 



Add 



Subtract 



3. Multiply 



Divide 



45 

1,234,567 

8,910 

23,456 

789,101 

234 

56,789 

210,978 

3,456 

78,123 

432,987 

65,432 



9,832,184,567 
3,219,383,574 



38,798,640,209 
76,039 



26,544,332 by 394 



The children were required to prove their answers before 
handing their work in. 

The results of this test are shown for the whole city in the ac- 
companying tabulation. There is a decided uniformity in percen- 
tage averages for the different schools, indicating that the children 
the city over, attain substantially the same standard of accuracy. An 
analysis of the results by grades proves that there is very little in- 
crease in accuracy in addition and subtraction from the fifth grade 
up. Improvement is more marked in multiplication and division. 

The subtraction example (3219383574) ^^Y ^^ considered the 

fairest test of accuracy. A compilation of the results in one school 
building (The Franklin) showed that of 218 pupils, there were only 
10 pupils who made a mistake in the reckoning. The averages for 
the whole city in this test were 96%, 97%, 98%, and 99% for the 
successive grades V, VI, VII, and VIII. This is a creditable rec- 
ord. The results as marked by the teachers on the basis of column 
not absolute accuracy are as follows : 



Results of Arithmetic Test. Averages for All Schools 



School 


Grade VIII. Grade VII. Grade VI. Grade V. 


1234123412341234 


Eastern 


q6 


100 


95 


97 


98 


100 


96 


100 


97 


99 


93 


91 


88 


99 


82 


80 


Elmwood . . . 










95 


97 


8q 


88 


94 


99 


90 


93 


77 


97 


77 


75 


Franklin. . . . 


Q7 


100 


9S 


96 


94 


99 


91 


93 


90 


99 


91 


89 


91 


99 


84 


84 


Columbian... 


q6 


100 


97 


99 


9 5 


100 


96 


97 


90 


97 


92 


91 


89 


98 


78 


87 


Nassau 


8q 


99 


91 + 


91 


92 


99 


88 


88 


95 


99 


87 


91 


94 


98 


81 


78 


Ashland .... 


92 


99 


92 


90 


97 


99 


91 


92 


76 


96 


83 


80 


80 


97 


79 


80 


Lincoln 


91 


99 


93 


96 


97 


93 


88 


95 


89 


94 


82 


87 


78 


87 


67 


75 



Average. .92 99 



95 98 



90 92 



85 96 



46 

The following test in business arithmetic, also taken from the 
report of the Cleveland Educational Commission was set for eighth 
grade pupils. 

"Harry Clifton bought of James Armitage goods as indicated 
below. The clerk who sold the goods and made the memoranda 
misspelled some of the words. The bookkeeper corrected these er- 
rors in making up the account, and you are expected to do the same. 
The memoranda showed the following charges. 

I March, 2 dozzen Orranges at 45 cents a dozzen; 2 March, 2 pecks of aples 
at 35c a peck ; 3 March, 2 cans of punkins @ I2i^c. each ; 4 Mar., 2 galons 
molassis at 55c a gall and 2 lb Butter at 33c a pound; 6 March 11 yards of 
callico at 7c per yard ; 6 mar., 2 lb coffey at ^ of a dollar a pound ; 7 Mar. 
I sack Sugor, $1.18; 8 Mar, i gal. sirrup, $1.00; 10 March. Pickels, 33c; next 
day, Cabbage, 12 cents. 14 Mar, Cheese 75. ; 15 Bar. 3 lb Rasins at 15c a 
pound; ditto 2 ton soft cole at $3.75 a ton; 16 March, paid in cash $6.00 on 
acct; 17 March, 3 rolls wall paper @ 17c a roll 20 March, 3 hours plummers 
time at 50 cents an hour ; 25 March, i ref rigerater, $20.00 ; 27 March, i 
spunge, 37 cents ; last day of the month, 2 doz. lemons at 16 cents a doz. 

Write out the itemized bill, using the ordinary form, for the 
above, showing the amount due on account and receipt the bill. 

The making out of a bill is a test that should appeal to a bus- 
iness man who desires to see the schools make a closer connection 
with life. This test demands the rendering of a simple grocer's 
bill. These bills were all drawn up by eighth grade pupils, and from 
pupils of this age one should expect good results. The papers are 
almost uniformly legible, neat and clean. Neatness is a venerable 
and valuable school virtue; but frankness tempts me to say that 
these bills are neat to a fault. There was, of course, a very natural 
desire to make them presentable, but in the business world, bills are 
not written out with the painstaking efforts and leisure which char- 
acterize these school room bills. Without intending any petty cri- 
ticism of a characteristic which is not peculiar to East Orange it 
may be said that when the schools attempt to duplicate conditions 
of the outside world, they should not only remotely imitate them. 
Instead of spending ten, fifteen or twenty minutes in making out 
a simple bill of eleven items, the teachers should put a premium 
on dispatch. It would be much better pedagogy for the teacher 
to say, "The customer is waiting. Take your transfer paper and 
make out this bill and a duplicate in three minutes." That does 
away with uneconomical repetition and elaboration. Teachers 
should not allow child after child to write out completely the name 
of the month eleven times. March needs to be written only once, 
at the head of the column ; ditto marks even are superfluous. Speed 
and abbreviation belong to the business world. Many of the chil- 
dren did not abbreviate at all, or only randomly. Children should 
be taught to abbreviate and to use the very simplest abbreviations. 
Most firms would prefer dz. to dozs. for dozens, and present prac- 
tice approves the omission of the unnecessary period after the ab- 
breviation. These are trifles, but they count up and make the dif- 
ference between a businesslike and a schoolgirlish bill. One pupil 
wrote 35 unnecessary words and figures in a bill otherwise accept- 
able. While the bills were uniformly neat and tidy, there was not 
one bill of model business simplicity. 



47 

Spelling 

As a test in spelling all the pupils of the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th 
grades were asked to write an account of what they did on last 
Saturday. The spelling as shown by these compositions of about a 
thousand pupils is very satisfactory. The test was a fair one ; it de- 
manded that the children spell correctly words such as they would 
naturally use in writing a letter. One per cent was deducted for 
each misspelled word. The percentage average for 24 sets of papers 
from as many rooms (V, VI, VII, VIII )w over 98%. Excluding 
the relatively few bad spellers who made most of the errors, the 
score would be still nearer the hundred mark. This seems to mean 
that nearly every school child in East Orange above the 5th grade 
can write a letter of pull page length with a probable spelling error 
of one or two words. This is an excellent record and a good answer 
to the favorite criticism that children no longer know how to spell. 

It must be said, however, that there are several possible rea- 
sons for this good spelling. Available statistics and experiments 
show that spelling is only partially the result of much formal drill, 
and that an excessive, wasteful amount of time is usually devoted 
to the subject. It should not be given as a special subject in the 
first grade and until children have made a beginning of writing un- 
der careful instruction, written spelling should not be required. 
Less time may be given to spelling if the lessons are confined to 
words which are in everyday use, and the teacher goes over the 
lesson with the pupils before they begin to study it. The spelling 
lesson for the day might be written upon the blackboard in the 
morning as well as confined to the book. 

Reading 

All classes in reading are taught according to a single method, 
and as it is well carried out the children learn to pronounce words 
even difficult ones very rapidly, and can soon repeat the words on 
a page. What I am not so sure of is the thought-getting side of 
their reading. It is said that they must learn to overcome the me- 
chanical difficulties before they give much attention to the thought 
in what they read. That is like teaching a child to talk before he is 
allowed to say anything. Reading without due attention to thought 
undoubtedly leads to habits of divided attention. Facility in work 
naming may advance, but facility in thinking and using books prop- 
erly must suffer. I think the good results which are now gotten 
could be made better by more talking about what is read. There 
is much too little of that, I am sure. It is a good practice to have 
one child read to the others sometimes, and for the others to be 
without books that they may listen to what he reads. It is an ad- 
vantage to supply sets of books even to little children, no two of 
which are alike, as well as sets of similar books. Even first grade 
pupils like to try their powers on new books and to read a book 
privately by themselves. Such sets of irregular books need not be 
primers or readers, but real books in simple language which tell an 



48 

interesting story. The problem of reading is not to teach a child 
how to read, but to teach him to read. That is a much larger un- 
dertaking, and requires teachers to help their pupils to get books, 
to cooperate with the public library. 

They must assist in the formation of habits of using and lov- 
ing books beyond the list of textbooks. Good readers in the upper 
grades are rare, yet the art of reading aloud is a fine art which we 
would do well to cultivate vigorously. The spiritual training of 
the voice, which Professor Corson championed so earnestly, is a 
rich schooling of the understanding. It should have a large place 
in elementary schools. 

Writing 

The accounts of "What I did last Saturday" were examined 
for penmanship, as well as for spelling and composition. The hand- 
writing is legible and neat. It does not have enough movement, 
vitality, or individuality. There is rather too much copybook sym- 
metry and uniformity in it. It is pretty writing, rather than good 
writing. The outward form is emphasized, rather than the process 
which should be used. But it is the correct movement that we are 
after nowadays, and the correct movement is being taught at East 
Orange, and well taught. I have never seen better and more sat- 
isfactory lessons ; but I have watched the same pupils at their writ- 
ten work in other subjects and have not been able to find many 
who were using the method of writing which they had practiced in 
the writing class. There is, I think, too much written work called 
for in the lower grades. Written work on paper should be post- 
poned in as far as it can be, until some proficiency in writing has 
been attained. Too much written work is required now in all 
grades, and as a consequence it is not done according to the meth- 
ods which are taught in the writing class. Consequently good and 
well-established habits of writing are not formed. Only enthusiasm 
and energetic and untiring leading on the part of teachers will teach 
writing in the elementary schools as well as it is now taught in 
some business colleges. 

Geography 

The present tendency among educators is to give more time 
to the content studies, among which geography and history are the 
most important. The organizing principle in geography is the in- 
terdependence of social Hfe. Our own city and its activities, what 
we make and exchange with other people, and what they exchange 
with us, how location afifects our doings and their doings, how com- 
modities are taken from the places where they are grown to the 
places where they are used, what government does to assist us in 
living, what other governments do and how their people live, are 
generally recognized as the main things to which all the others are 
tributary in this elementary study of man and his ways of using the 
things of this world and associating with his fellow beings in a 



49 

cooperative life. It is well to begin this large and valuable subject 
in the third grade as is now done. Even before that simple stories 
of men's work should be told. The occupation work of the kin- 
dergarten may be very profitably extended through the second and 
third years. Of drill in locational geography in the middle grades 
there must be a great deal, but it might be of places and their sig- 
nificance, and not of names of places merely. This drill work must 
have enough meaning to make it interesting and instructive. 

Music 

This is the oldest and one of the most important studies in the 
schools. It is important because certain ideas about life, home and 
country must get into the soul, or rather must grow out of the soul, 
and be rooted deep in the emotional being of each one of us. It 
exists and always has existed to express the deepest things that are 
articulate, as well as to be "the voice of the unutterable." The 
technical work in music is well done, but I question if there is 
enough singing of simple songs. If music is taught in the elemen- 
tary schools not to make musicians, but to give certain ideas an im- 
perishable value, we can well afford to reduce the work in technical 
music in order to give such songs as have the greatest meaning a 
satisfactory place. 

Drav\ang, Manual Work, Sewing, Domestic Science, Etc. 

The work in freehand drawing is done well. It should have 
a larger place in the elementary grades. Writing can yield time to 
it to advantage. More work in design should be given. Primary 
manual work should be increased in amount and variety. The best 
primary schools carry kindergarten ideas well on into the lower 
grades. The work in sewing is very satisfactory. It is thoroughly 
practical and teaches valuable lessons of self-help, and capacity to 
the very ones who should have them. Its incidental lessons are of 
great worth. Manual training in woodwork should and will be 
built up. It should be taught primarily for its utility. Elementary 
lessons in the proper use of tools are just as necessary for the un- 
derstanding of human affairs as elementary lessons in any other 
subject. There is need for some instruction in mechanical drawing 
to accompany this work in the 5th, 6th, and 7th grades. Cooking 
centers with full equipment should be provided in the elementary 
schools, and all girls of the 7th and 8th grades should have thor- 
ough instruction in that subject. 

Elementary Science 

Descriptive nature study is nov/ given. An elementary knowl- 
edge of soils, crops, and plant, tree and animal life, should be sought 
also. School gardens would make this possible. Physiology and 
hygiene should have more attention. Good textbooks now exist 
which make this an interesting and profitable study. "This is the 



50 

time," says Prof. Perry, ''say at the ages of eleven to thirteen, when 
boys ought to have a course of experimental science, w^eighing and 
measuring accurately, learning the rules of mensuration, taking 
specific gravities, learning something of barometers and thermom- 
eters, of magnetism and currents of electricity." 

Grammar and Language Instruction 

It is hard to persuade school authorities and teachers that for- 
mal grammar is not a proper elementary school study, but the re- 
sults which are gotten from it are entirely out of proportion to the 
time which is spent on it. Technical grammar should be confined 
to a few, a very few of the essential relations of thought. It should 
never be a study of words and sentences alone, but of thought as it 
is expressed in sentences. The common errors in form can be over- 
come if proper care is taken in the early grades. Miss Myra King 
has published a little book on Language Games for little Children, 
whose use is making the more difficult forms a matter of second 
nature. 

Written composition in the primary grades should be reduced 
to a minimum. Oral composition may be increased to a maximum. 
More time should be given to oral composition in all the grades. A 
very practical knowledge of letter writing, punctuation, commercial 
forms, etc., should be sought and should be made habitual in the 
upper classes. Oral language is much more used in life than 
written language is, and should receive a correspondingly larger 
attention in school. As a test in English, spelling and writing, all 
the pupils of the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grades were asked to write 
a somewhat full account of "What I did last Saturday." These 
papers show that their young authors are acquiring the fundamen- 
tals of writt'er. language and sentence structure. They do not show 
much ability m selecting special themes or items for amplification, 
and are chronologies rather than histories of a day. Some few show 
literary merit, but most are lacking in accounts of the nature of the 
"good time" which their authors almost with one accord had. Their 
arrival at home "in time for supper" was an event which quite nat- 
urally impressed itself upon the minds of most of them. 

Ethics 

I have found it of great profit to teachers and pupils alike to 
allot two periods of 15 minutes each per week in each grade to con- 
versations about matters which children and adults alike regard -as 
ethical ; morals and manners must of course be taught in every les- 
son, but they should also receive separate attention. It is somewhat 
unfair to expect children to develop the virtues without taking pains 
to tell them v;hat people outside the home as well as in it think about 
these matters. Our experience was that no lesson was looked to so 
eagerly as this one, and in no other class did the pupils tell their ex- 
periences or express their convictions so freely as in this. If the 
proper business of man is to be good, and "an unexamined life is 
not fit to be lived by any man" it would seem that the schools should 



do their part in helping- the children to make this examination of the 
conduct which all agree in calling good. 

The subjects which were suggested for conversation, were ist 
and 2d years, cleanliness and neatness, politeness (of children), 
gentleness, kindness to others, kindness to animals, cruelty ; 2,d and 
4th years, review first and second years' work and discuss forms of 
kindness to others, love, truthfulness, fidelity, duty, obedience; 5^/1 
year, review the 3d and 4th years' w^ork, and discuss nobility, re- 
spect and reverence, gratitude and thankfulness, forgiveness, con- 
fession, honesty ; 6th year, in addition to a review of the 5th year's 
w^^rk. discuss honor, courage, humility, self-respect, self-control ; 
yth year, review the work of the preceding year, and discuss pru- 
dence, good name, good manners (youth), health, temperance, evil 
habits ; 8th year, review the work of the preceding year, and discuss 
bad language, evil speaking, industry, saving money and charity, 
patriotism, civil duties. 

Current Events 

Twenty or thirty minutes per week should be given to an oral 
report by the pupils in the upper grades on the most important news 
of the week. This will be stimulating and valuable in many ways. 

According to this plan the chief subjects for study in the first 
and second grades are reading, manual work, oral language with 
games as well as other appropriate lessons, physical exercises, mu- 
sic, drawing and writing on the blackboard, nature study, and his- 
tory studies, etc. The range of matter in reading, arithmetic and 
English we recommend should be narrowed and restricted to topics 
of real social import. Real fundamentals should be taught more 
carefully than now. The work in history, and geography should be 
considerably enriched. Manual training and domestic science should 
have a larger allotment of time. 

VIII.— The High School 
Some General Facts About the High School 

Table O 

The number who graduate from elementary schools and go to 
the High School : — 

Graduated from Entered 
Grammar School High School 
In full. Conditioned 

1909 234 20 203 

1910 • 262 22 226 

191 1 252 1 1 196 

Table P 

Distribution by years for last three years — 

1st 2nd 3d 4th P.O. 

1908- 1909 295 167 91 67 10 

1909-1910 344 149 131 77 II 

1910-1911 361 153 125 72 5 

Whole number of boys and girls — (Boys) 318; (Girls) 434; (Total) 752. 



52 

What becomes of its graduates ? What number of them go to 
college? How do they do there? The number who go to business? 
etc : — 

About one-half of them go to college. They generally do well. 
The boys who do not go to college find business positions. "I reg- 
ularly have more applications for them from business houses than I 
have boys," says the principal. 

The High School 

This High School has come up through trials and heavy tribu- 
lation to its present happy condition. For some years while the 
community was engaged in settling its differences as to where the 
new building should be located, the old building was wickedly over- 
crowded and the school is still suffering from the confused and 
depressed state to which its life was reduced in these "terrible 
years" of its history. Its new quarters are not yet quite in order, 
but when it is once firmly settled in them it will be able to do a 
work for which the community will not feel that it has paid too 
high a price. The Board of Education which was elected primarily 
to carry out the will of the people in erecting this building and to 
have it ready for occupancy at the beginnning of this school year 
has done its work well. The building is a school palace as it ought 
to be, beautiful, commodious enough to provide room for all the 
students who may come for the years of the next decade, well ar- 
ranged, unusually well lighted through the wise use of prismatic 
glass, as satisfactorily ventilated perhaps as it can be. and with a 
feature necessary to the success of every large High School, — a dig- 
nified and elevating meeting place for the whole school. For five 
years the Principal has not once been able to meet his school 
as a whole. It is not surprising that at the present time it lacks 
something of that unity and pull-together spirit which makes the 
best schools what they are. But those days are over now, and every- 
thing that I have been able to discover concerning it points to 
an energetic and prosperous future. 

The old High School, built in 1891, had ten recitation rooms. 
The new one has 29 with a full complement of offices, library, study 
rooms, gymnasium, locker rooms, toilet rooms, etc. When it is fin- 
ished there will be, as there should be, space and to spare for all 
needs. Some question has arisen as to the amount of equipment 
which such a school should have. The only test which can be ap- 
plied in passing upon the requests of the separate departments for 
supplies, tools, and books for their work is not, can they get along 
without them ? but, will they be used ? I think more books are need- 
ed in the library, and recommend that a librarian be appointed to 
direct and assist the students in their use of them. A well-trained 
ycung woman in a high school library can teach the students quite 
as effectually as the regular teachers of the school. And the les- 
sons in the use of books which she will teach are important. 

The Arts and Crafts work which I regard as of the greatest 
possible value and which is as successfully taught here as anywhere 



53 

in the land should have a complete equipment. The full equipment 
for instruction in cooking, which is also well conducted, is still to 
be supplied. The wood shop is getting under way, but a small ma- 
chine shop is needed and if the school is to do for its pupils all that 
a well-equipped secondary school must do in preparing its pupils 
for taking their proper places in the varied life of the large and 
many-sided city of which East Orange is really a part, it must soon 
offer courses in technical instruction and for this purpose it will 
need other shops, as for forging, foundry work, etc., and must make 
more adequate provision for mechanical drawing, shop mathe- 
matics, etc. 

The problem of preparing a gymnasium is a pressing one. 
There is a rare opportunity of fitting up an open air one by pro- 
viding the needed equipment and enclosing the open room at the 
top by means of windows on the more exposed side. The room 
would then have to be heated, but not to the degree that indoor 
rooms are heated. Shower baths could then be provided 
and the room originally intended for a gymnasium could be 
used for shops, lockers, etc. I have not gone into this plan care- 
fully enough to press it upon those in charge, but an outdoor gym- 
nasium has such great advantages over an indoor one that if it can 
be provided, it should be. The work in physical training is being 
well done and is so much more important than anything else that 
is being done or can be done in a high school, that all that is re- 
quired for it should at once be arranged for. The medical exam- 
inations of students in the High School are now in charge of a wo- 
man physician. This is the best possible plan as far as the girls 
are concerned, but the physician who examines the boys should be 
a man, a young man, an athletic man, and a good man. If he is of 
the right sort he can remake the lives of not a small number of 
students. 

That the gymnastic instructors may know all about the sort 
of exercises which their pupils require and may have a good oppor- 
tunity to talk over the conditions of each pupil's needs with him in- 
dividually and with that close contact which they find most valuable 
in this work, they must, I think, conduct the series of physical 
examinations which gymnastic instructors find to be requisite for 
their work. There seems to be an unnecessary duplication here ; the 
school physician examines all students, and the gymnastic instruc- 
tor examines all students. The duplication is only a seeming one. 
The objects of these examinations are different. Where one exam- 
iner discovers conditions that the other should be sure to take ac- 
count of, they should be communicated immediately and if the 
proper efforts are made there need be no friction as to jurisdiction 
and authority. 

Examinations 

What has already been said about examinations in the elemen- 
tary schools applies here also. There are far too many of them. 
Four days are set apart for final examinations at the end of each 



54 

term. They are made much too concentrated a feature. They tend 
to keep teaching ahead of education in importance in the minds of 
the teachers. Beyond one formal examination a term they should 
not be required, and that one should be put into the last recitation 
period. The colleges are responsible for this pernicious prevalence 
of teaching-destroying examinations in high schools. They must be 
helped to learn better ways. Teachers should use their own dis- 
cretion in requiring written lessons throughout the term, remember- 
ing only that the construction of knowledge which each student is 
engaged upon requires a due amount of recapitulating, that it may 
be properly ordered and arranged and that the educational con- 
ventions which we must fulfil in the spirit, if not in the letter, de- 
mand a certain facility in writing examination papers as a 
part — let us hope a waning part — of the training of educated per- 
sons. All students should be required to take the final examinations ; 
none should be excused. Students who fail twice in their term's 
work should go back to the next lower grade. 

Report cards are now sent to parents every six weeks. Twice 
a year should be enough unless the student is failing; then the re- 
port should be sent at once and repeated oftener than every six weeks 
until conditions are improved. The bookkeeping and the reports 
which teachers are required to make should be reduced to their 
lowest terms. Bookkeeping is so different from teaching in its 
character that the same mind cannot usually do both well. Suffi- 
cient clerical assistance should be provided to free the teachers for 
their essential work of teaching. 

There is one other feature of this school which does not make 
for educational efficiency. I refer to the custom of requiring stu- 
dents who have not performed their classroom work satisfactorily 
to come back for an hour in the afternoon. This provision invites 
students to evade their duties at the time when they should be 
performed. It gives them two chances to do what they ought to do 
with only one, and again it treats high school folks as if they were 
grammar school children. It does not put a proper degree of re- 
sponsibility upon them. Students should be put into a position 
where they must do their own work. If they need special help from 
their teachers, the teacher siiould see them after class or at a special 
office hour which need not be held oftener than once a week if the 
classroom instruction and the preparation of the students are of 
the right sort. Individual instruction is needed in the high school 
and students should be encouraged to talk over their work with 
their teachers, but this must not be allowed to interfere with the 
larger responsibility which students must assume in the high school. 



The Course of Study 

It is not desirable that I should undertake to estimate the value 
of the instruction which is being given by individual teachers. Two 
or three things I do want to say, however, but not in the way of 
praise or blame, rather as suggesting profitable lines of development. 



55 

The modern languages are taught by the direct method which 
most authorities regard as the best. Conversation should find an 
even larger place in the French classes. Latin could be made less 
formal and more a study of thought relations in the grammar, and 
of content in the work of translation. Oral English should have 
more attention. 

General science should take the place of physical geography 
in the first year. It should, however, include the more profitable 
parts of physical geography but in simplified form. A most in- 
teresting course in practical chemistry is now being given in which 
the requirement set by colleges is disregarded, and the work devel- 
oped in accordance with the knowledge needs of the pupil. This is 
a move in the right direction. 

All students, except those in the commercial course, are re- 
quired to take algebra, but for some it is hardly a profitable study. 
Would it not be better to offer them something else? 

In the classical and scientific courses students begin two for- 
eign languages in the same year ; surely this is not wise. 

One high school of which I know practices the excellent cus- 
tom of sending all students whose writing or spelling is below par 
to the commercial teacher who has charge of those subjects for 
special instruction in them. He keeps them in his class in writing 
and spelling until they are sufficiently advanced to omit special les- 
sons in the subject of their deficiency. President Hall maintains 
that it is the duty of those who make high school courses of study 
to provide in them for a rapid and efifective review of grammar 
grade subjects. In English this is not necessary, though the bur- 
den of teaching English grammar, if it must be taught, should be 
on the high schools. In arithmetic, geography and history this re- 
view would be very desirable, and need not unsettle the regular pro- 
gram overmuch. 

Students who are not going to college should not be encour- 
aged to take Latin ; most of them should not be permitted to do so. 

I would abolish the so-called "academic course" which is a gen- 
eral course leading nowhere, and substitute for it a course for girls 
of a somewhat technical kind, but with plenty of culture subjects in 
it as well intended to fit them better to preside over a well ordered 
home. The chief subjects in this course would be science (chiefly 
biology and the course in applied chemistry, hygiene and sanita- 
tion), domestic arts, arts and crafts work, English, history, and 
perhaps one foreign language. Boys should have a course open to 
them made up of shop work, mechanical drawing, physics, applied 
chemistry, English, history, etc., with a modern language as elec- 
tive. The college preparatory courses are vocational ; they prepare 
directly for further activities ; so does the commercial course which 
will become a strong feature of the school. The other one does not 
and ought to. Music is one of the best of studies in a high school 
and should have more attention. 



56 

The Students 

"About 40% of our pupils/' writes the superintendent, "enter 
the high school — 80 to 85 per cent of each graduating class," This 
is a remarkably fine state of affairs, and one of which the commun- 
ity may well be proud. But what happens to them after they get 
to the high school? The same thing that happens in most high 
schools. They drop out in very large numbers at the end of the 
first year. The following table shows "the mortality" in the classes 
which entered in 1906, 1907, 1908. 

First Second Third Fourth 

year year year year 

Year class class class class 

1906 214 

1907 268 115 

1908 •• 297 133 90 

1909 •■ 167 91 07 

1910 131 71 

191 1 •• S7 

The membership in second-year classes in high schools gen- 
erally is from one-third to one-half as large as that of first year 
classes. About 25% of the boys who enter continue to the end of 
the course; about 31% of the girls remain to graduate. What rea- 
sons are there for this highly unsatisfactory state of affairs ? Here 
is the examination record for last June (1911)- The per cent of 
each class that failed is rather high. 

Results of Examinations 
Table Q 







High School, June, 19 


II 












Per Cent 


Per Cent 


Name of 




Aver. No. 


Per Cent 


Failed of 


Failed of 


Teacher 




per Section 


Excused 


Class 


Those Examined 




X 


21 


45 


6 


II 




y 


21 


38 


9 


14 




z 


23 


28 


10 


15 




a 


16 


23 ' 


10 


13 




b 


16 


31 


12 


17 




c 


21 


65 


13 


39 




d 


17 


32 


14 


20 




e 


22 


31 


14 


21 




f 


27 


46 


14 


26 




g 


17 


Z7 


IS 


24 




h 


20 


38 


16 


26 




i 


27 


47 


17 


33 




j 


18 


20 


19 


24 




k 


19 


43 


20 


36 




1 


21 


26 


20 


27 




m 


23 


28 


20 


27 




n 


21 


34 


22 


S 







30 


47 


23 




P 


24 


43 


27 


48 




q 


22 


21 


27 


34 




r 


27 


48 


27 


S3 




s 


20 


33 


38 


56 



57 

Record of Students for the Year. 
Table R 



1st yr. 2d yr. 3d yr. 4th yr. Total 

No. failed last yr *I24 29 14 2 169 

" 70—80% 113 76 55 50 294 

" 80 — 90% .^ 52 26 21 30 129 

" 90 — 100% 8 3 2 7 20 

Total promoted 173 105 78 87 443 

*NoTE. — Some years ago the Board of Education established five year 
courses for those who found the work of a four years' course 
too difficult. These pupils are classified twice in the first year 
and are included in the "failed" list above, to the number of 36. 

Here are the reasons given for leaving the high school, October 
24, 1910 to June ist, 191 1. 

Summary by Reasons 

Table S 



I 

B. G. 



II 
B. G. 



Ill 
B. G. 



IV Total 
B. G. 



Went to work ; poor 4 

Fair or good 4 

Behind; poor work 10 

Poor health 2 

Moved 4 

To private school 

" Incapable " i 

Dropped or suspended 

No reason given 2 

Before October 24 3 



3 

4 

13 

5 



18 

22 

23 

17 

3 

I 

a 

4 
8 

98 



But there are more reasons than appear in this list. The gram- 
mar schools and the high schools do not join. They are not mem- 
bers of one well related whole. This is true generally, but is 
somewhat more true of East Orange than of some other places, 
because of a somewhat protracted but now happily disappearing 
mutual misunderstanding of functions and purposes. High school 
teachers find the grammar school pupils who come to them some- 
what helpless and unable to do independent work. "They lack self- 
control. They do not know how to study. Everything has been 
done for them ; they do not know how to do anything for them- 
selves." These are typical statements. Some high school teachers 
think that there has not been enough drill, others that too small 
an amount of work has been done. The elementary teachers on their 
part maintain that the high school teachers do not treat their pupils 
with sufficient care ; that they leave them to flounder and sink with- 
out throwing them a life preserver, though they have used no care 
in marking the depth of the water. These statements are both true, 
but not wholly true, nor do they when taken together make up the 



58 

whole truth. Elementary teachers do too much for their pupils; 
high school teachers do too little. Something of the protective 
mothering which is so admirable a feature of elementary school 
work must be developed in the High School. The entering class 
could be divided up into sections and each teacher detailed to 
act as an advisor and father confessor to one section. This teacher 
should be responsible for his students through their entire course. 
This shepherding of high school students would help many who oth- 
erwise will drop out from the destructive effects of a failure at the 
beginning of life which in addition to destroying their proper self 
esteem robs them of their right to an education. 

The students should be organized, too, to help their more back- 
ward fellows out of difficulties. They can, and in some places do, 
take it upon themselves to give tutorial help to those of their com- 
panions who need it. They rally vigorously to the cry that "no 
student must be allowed to fail in this school." This cooperative 
effort on the part of students is of the greatest benefit to him 
who gives as well as to him who takes. Like student self govern- 
ment, within proper limits, it can be made one of the great sources 
of strength in a high school. 

Need for a Six Year High School 

But the utmost precaution along these lines will not eliminate 
certain fundamental difficulties which attach to the course of study 
as it is usually arranged. Pupils are expected to spend eight years 
in the same round of studies which are unnecessarily drawn out in 
quantity to provide an educational filling for a course of that 
length. The essentials can be taught in a shorter time and better 
taught than at present if we will but concentrate upon them. Our 
elementary school pupils become stale at their work. They mark 
time instead of marching. Sixth grade pupils do their arithmetic 
work almost as well as eighth grade pupils. There is much lost mo- 
tion in the upper grades of the grammar schools. Pupils are eager 
to get on to other things. 

On the other hand much that is attempted in the first year of 
the high school when students have reached the age of adolescence 
can be done very much better at the age of 12 and 13. This is the 
period for drill and formal work ; the age of 14 demands richness 
of content and larger opportunities for thinking. The chasms be- 
tween the elementary schools and the high school might be bridged 
if the change of place, studies, methods, teachers and discipline 
which must now be made abruptly were made gradually. Besides 
the change in the nature of the pupil must be considered. Why 
should there not be a letting down of the high school into the gram- 
mar schools, and a lifting of certain grammar school studies into 
the high school course? These facts have led some of the best 
educators to reorganize their course of study into six years of ele- 
mentary school work, and six years of high school work. So far 
as it has been tried, the results are more than satisfactory to every- 
one who has had a hand in these experiments ; all concerned are 



59 

enthusiastic and claim that an improvement of the greatest value 
has been attained. 

The general course for the first three years in four such 
schools whose good work I can vouch for is as follows : 



General Course 



Seventh Year 


Eighth Year 


Ninth Year 


English : 

Literature 2 

Language 2 

Spelling I 


EngHsh : 

Literature 2 

Language 2 

Spelling I 


English 5 


Arithmetic 5 






Industrial Geography. . 2 
Industrial History. ... 2 


History and Civics .... 5 




Physical Training i 


Physical Training 2 


Physical Training 2 


Music 2 


Music or Oral English . 2 


Music or Oral EngUsh . 2 


Phvsioloev I 


Physiology and 

Hygiene 2 








Drawing 2 

Penmanship 2 






Manual Training; 

Girls : Cooking 2 

Sewing 2 

Boys : Woodwork. . . 4 


Manual Training: 

Girls : Cooking 2 

Sewing 2 

Boys : Woodwork. . . 4 


Manual Training: 

Girls : Cooking 2 

Sewing 2 

Boys : Woodwork. . . 4 


Select I of the following : 

French 5 

German 5 

Spanish 5 

Latin 5 

Bookkeeping 5 

Stenography 5 


Select 2 of the following : 

French 5 

German 5 

Spanish 5 

Latin 5 

Bookkeeping 5 

Stenography 5 

Algebra 5 

Drawing: Freehand 
or Mechanical 5 


Select 3 of the following : 

French 5 

German 5 

Spanish 5 

Latin 5 

Bookkeeping 5 

Stenography 5 

Algebra 5 

Commercial Arith- 
metic 5 

Ancient History .... 5 
General Science 5 



NoTB — Two languages may be selected only by permission. 

Besides, each such high school offers a commercial course and 
a vocational course which begin with the seventh year. East Or- 
ange is in a peculiarly favorable position to try this method of re- 
organizing her schools ; no more room than is now in use is re- 
quired ; nothing but a new course of studies and the necessary re- 
arranging of the work of the teachers which would be involved. 
This high school or intermediate work might be given at the high 
school buildings, or in certain elementary schools, or part 
of it in each place. Some of the principals have been 
urging the need for an industrial or trade school in East 



6o 

Orange for some years. There is need for it, for far too many 
boys stop their education at or before the end of the sixth grade. 
This vocational school could be organized as an intermediate high 
school in certain rooms in one of the elementary school buildings. 
The general course could be given in another place and the regular 
7th and 8th grade work, which is now being done could still be 
continued in some one or two of the schools. East Orange would 
then be able to offer every pupil who completes six years of ele- 
mentary school work a choice of three opportunities for further 
specialized education. He could either go to a six year high school 
where he would begin the languages when he ought to begin them 
and could there finish the main things in his grammar school 
course, with the aid of secondary methods and teachers, and be- 
side would get the great benefit of promotion to a new work and 
dignity and have time enough to do his secondary school work in 
a more leisurely and thorough fashion ; or he could go, if he chose, 
to a trade school and learn the elements of a useful trade and along 
with it take such school studies as would contribute to his profi- 
ciency in it ; or go on as at present. 

This opportunity to enlarge and enrich the course and at the 
same time cure some of the radical defects of the present arrange- 
ment seems to me too valuable a one to be overlooked. 

Need for Vocational Guidance 

Dean Phillips of Yale is fond of recalling the fact that in earl- 
ier days the ministers in the towns of Connecticut and in the rest 
of New England were self-appointed guardians of the young. Most 
zealously did they watch for the evidence of superior ability among 
them, and when a boy showed talent of any kind they urged him 
to go to college and themselves gave him the lessons and helped 
to provide the wherewithal needed that he might enter there. The 
earlier college m.en were most of them their boys in school whom 
they advised and encouraged and counseled, and it was because of 
their efforts, says Professor Phillips, that Connecticut supplied 
ministers and judges and college professors and leaders of the peo- 
ple in former time to almost every other state of the union. What 
more splendid service could they have performed than the service 
of helping young people to settle upon useful callings for which 
their talents and their inclinations fitted them ! That duty is ne- 
glected today. It belongs to both elementary and high schools and 
here and there they are beginning to perform it. 

They are going about it in three ways : ( i ) by employing a 
vocational expert, — one who has made a study of the special op- 
portunities which the leading callings offer and the way to prepare 
for them, and to set about entering them ; to consult with students 
and advise them in the choice of an occupation; (2) to give a 
course of instruction (say) for one term to the first year students 
in the high school upon typical occupations, what they offer, and 
how to prepare for them ; this is a culture course of considerable 
value; (3) in addition to these measures at least one high school — 
that of Grand Rapids, Mich. — has planned a series of compositions 



6i 

running through the entire four years which are intended to reveal 
to the student himself, and to his teachers somewhat more clearly 
than anything else will, what his particular talents and preferences 
are and what calling he should enter. This school takes its respon- 
sibility for vocational assistance very seriously and has blazed a 
path for others to follow. An investigation by the principal, Mr. 
Jesse B. Davis, disclosed the fact that of the 531 boys in his school 
240 had decided upon some vocation. Of the 291 who had not, 194 
had tried, while 97 had made no effort; 235 said they would like 
to have advice ; 56 were indifferent ; 105 of the 240 who had de- 
cided reported that the matter had been settled by their parents, 26 
by teachers, 33 by companions ; 59 had chosen any one occupation be- 
cause a friend or relative was following it. About % were going 
to be engineers, 22 to be lawyers, and 12 farmers. Teachers of 
mathematics would agree, says the principal, that 73 of the boys 
who were going to be engineers would do better work in some other 
calling. 

The compositions which the students write in the first term 
of the first year are upon these subjects: i, My family; 2, My 
health; 3, The record of a day; 4, My habits; 5, My likes and dis- 
likes; 6, The most important event in my life; 7, My ambition; 8, 
My church; 9, A self estimate. The subjects for the second term 
are biographical. They are (Franklin) at my age, how (Edison) 
succeeded, my opportunities compared with those of (Lincoln), have 
I the qualities found in (great men) ? 

The subjects for the first term of the loth year are (i) The 
kind of employment I can get now, (2) Child labor; (3) The wages 
of those leaving school at the 8th grade compared with those of 
high school graduates, (4) On different topics assigned by the 
teacher. The subjects on which they write during the nth year 
are: The elements of success, character, duty and obligation; and 
during the 12th year, the relation of the individual to society as rep- 
resented in its several institutions. 

Mr. E. C. Moore, Dec. 8, 191 1. 

Yale University, New Haven, Conn. 
Dear Sir : — 

Our Superintendent of Schools has turned aver to me your letter in- 
quiring about our work in Vocational Guidance. I have not yet a complete 
account of our work in print, but hope soon to have something out that I 
can send in reply to similar requests. I will enclose an outlined bibliography 
of the work conducted through the Department of English in our high school. 
This, however, is but a small part, comparatively, of the work that is being 
done. Under the administration of our school, we have pupils divided into 
six large groups under charge of a teacher who may be called a voca- 
tional counselor. This teacher has but three classes a day and the rest of his 
time is given to the individual interests of his pupils. These teachers are 
more or less experts in guiding their pupils toward a proper goal in life, 
whether it be toward college or business pursuits. These teachers are equipped 
with the best books to be obtained to aid them in the work. If you can se- 
cure a copy of the proceedings of the North Central Association of Colleges 
and Secondary Schools, published this last spring, you will find a paper which 
I gave at their meeting in March. This paper is somewhat out of date but 
will undoubtedly serve your purpose. 

Sincerely yours, 

JESSE E. DAVIS. 



62 

Another recommendation which I should hke to make is that all 
high school students be required to give up membership in academic 
secret societies for the reason that high school students are alto- 
gether too young to play with sharp-edged social weapons of that 
sort, and because membership in such societies is always destruc- 
tive to the purposes of a public high school. Instead of these the 
student organizations in the school should be built up. 

I recommend that a special effort be made by principals, teach- 
ers and student body to build up the unity and school spirit which 
the harassing conditions of overcrowding in the old building have 
in a measure diminished. 



IX. — Summary of Recommendations 

All Schools 

1. That a systematic effort be made to secure a more active 
cooperation on the part of parents who have children in the schools 

2. That there be a more thorough systematization of the work 
of the Board of Education, the Superintendent of Schools and the 
other officers of the system, such as shall specify the functions and 
responsibilities of each. 

Elementary Schools 

3. That changes needed to insure greater protection against 
fire be made. 

4. That the ventilation of buildings be improved. 

5. That additional ground be added where most needed; and 
that more library books, dictionaries and encyclopaedias be provided 
where they are needed. 

6. That kindergarten children attend but one session. 

7. That the school day for ist and 2d grade children be made 
as short as possible, consistent with the requirements of the school 
law. 

8. That the hours of required home study be greatly reduced. 

9. That emphasis be shifted from an examination system of 
schools to a system which uses examinations as mere incidental 
features of its work. That formal examinations be given at the 
end of each term and that all students be required to take them. 

ID. That regular reports on the standing of pupils be sent to 
their parents twice a year and irregular ones whenever they are 
necessary. 

II. That the authority of supervisors of instruction in special 
subjects be strictly defined. 



63 

12. That principals be not required to teach so much and thus 
be left more free for their work of supervision. 

13. That meetings be held for the discussion of recent con- 
tributions to the hterature of education. 

14. That a systematic effort be made to further reduce the 
number of over-age pupils in the several grades. 

15. That teachers do more individual work with backward 
children and if possible that another ungraded room be opened for 
irregular pupils. 

16. That an effort be made to secure greater permanence 
in the teaching staff by raising the salary of teachers. 

17. That a new course of study be framed. Some changes 
which should be made are suggested. 

18. That standards of quality be raised and standards of 
quantity be lowered. 

19. That teachers do less, and pupils do more in the daily 
work of the schools. 



The High School 

20. That a librarian be appointed at the High School and 
all needed books be supplied. 

21. That all the shops needed for good technical work be 
equipped as soon as funds are available. 

22. That a gymnasium, preferably an open air one, be equipped 
at once. 

23. That a male physician be detailed to make the health ex- 
aminations of boys at the High School, and that the physical di- 
rectors make such independent examinations as they need to make 
to carry on their work to advantage. 

24. That formal examinations be required only at the end 
of each term, and that all students take them; that regular reports 
be sent home twice each year, irregular ones whenever necessary ; 
that after repeated failures students be put into a lower class. 

25. That the practice of having students return in the after- 
noon to do work which should have been done in the morning be 
abolished, and that teachers arrange to hold regular office hours 
for the convenience of students who may wish to consult them. 

26. That a systematic effort be made to cut down the num- 
ber of failures in high school work; that the chasm between the 
elementary and high schools be bridged. 



64 

2^. That a six-year high school course be established, and 
that provision be made so that pupils who have finished six years 
of elementary school work may then elect either to take a six year 
high school course or instruction in a vocational course which 
should be established, or go on in an eight grade elementary school 
course as at present. 

28. That provision be made for vocational assistance. 

29. That high school students be required to give up mem- 
bership in all academic secret societies; and that the student or- 
ganizations of the high school be built up. 



Date Due 




Gaylord I?ros. 

Makers 

Syracuse, N. V, 

PAT, JAN. 21,1908 






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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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